
Class_ 
Book„_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



J-Jow ]SJature Qures 



COMPRISING 



A NEW SYSTEM OF HYGIENE; 



ALSO 



The natural food of man 



A STATEMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE 

USE OF BREAD, CEREALS, PULSES, POTATOES, AND 

ALL OTHER STARCH FOODS. 



/ BV 

EMMET DENSMORE, M. D. 



tl There is no wealth but life — life, including all its power of love, joy, and 
admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of 
noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the 
functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence." 

— Ruskin. 

3Lortt(0tt : 
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. 

PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 

Nefo H>arit: 
STILLMAN & CO. 

1398 BROADWAY. 



\ • \^U 





R<>^ 


Copyright, 1892, 




STILLMAN & CO., 




NEW YORK. 





TO 

Dr. HELEN DENSMORE 

WHOSE ENTHUSIASTIC INTEREST IN ALL MOVEMENTS LOOKING TO THE 

BETTERMENT OF OUR RACE IS UNSURPASSED ; WHOSE PERSISTENT 

LABOURS IN BEHALF OF SUCH REFORMS AS SEEM OF GREATEST 

PROMISE ARE UNTIRING ; WHO FROM THE OUTSET HAS 

BEEN A CO-WORKER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

SYSTEM OF HYGIENE AND HEALTH WHICH 

THIS WORK AIMS TO UNFOLD, AND 

WITHOUT WHOSE HELP IT 

COULD NOT HAVE BEEN 

WRITTEN, 

THIS BOOK 
IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED. 




PREFACE. 

The critic will no doubt find abundant opportunity in 
the following pages to point out imperfections. As for 
the matter of repetitions, which may seem to many to be 
needlessly frequent, we can only plead the great import- 
Lce of a thorough understanding of the principles 
$ erein treated in order that good health may be attained 
.nd maintained. 

Much of the matter contained in this book is not 
new ; it is nowhere assumed that it is. 

The doctrine that food and dietetic habits are the 
chief factors in health and disease is as old as Plato, 
and received a new and powerful impulse through the 
life and writings of Louis Cornaro more than three 
hundred years ago. 

The doctrine that the use of bread, cereals, pulses 
and vegetables is not only unwholesome, but is at the 
very foundation of nervous prostration and modern dis- 
eases, is, however, sufficiently novel and startling. 

The value of fasting as a method of curing disease 
has been previously fairly well stated. The author only 
hopes by this book to call the attention thereto of many 
who have not before been aware of its great importance. 

That " catching cold " is always caused by errors in 
eating has also been well stated in the writings of our 
friend Dr. C. E. Page. This is a matter, in our opinion, 
fraught with such unusual importance that too much 
attention cannot well be given it. 



vi PREFACE. 

All hygienists, new-school physicians, and many of 
the old school, talk much of the importance of good 
ventilation ; at the same time, it is next to impossible to 
find any person who habitually sleeps with a wide-open 
window in all climates and weather. 

It is a common teaching of physiology that our 
breathing ought to be done through the nostrils, and it 
is a rule that is transgressed oftener than obeyed — when 
the hours of sleep as well as those when awake are con- 
sidered — by our physiologists, scientific men, and hy- 
gienists, to say nothing of those who give such matters 
no attention. 

The fact that although old-school physicians are 
wonderfully skilled in anatomy, physiology, pathology, 
and the diagnosis of disease, and at the same time not 
only utterly powerless to aid in the restoration of the 
patient, but on the whole prone to do untold damage by 
their drugs and methods of treatment, has been forcibly 
pointed out by some of the ablest members of the 
profession; and jests and diatribes against doctors 
are in everybody's mouth. All the same, no sooner is 
any person taken ill than the doctor is as surely sum- 
moned and as credulously consulted as is the sacred 
fetish on similar occasions by the Polynesian. 

It is our hope that the reader will see in this book 
such statements and such reasoning as will induce him 
unswervingly to resolve that whatever the ailment may 
be — aside from the realm of surgery — he will not con- 
plicate the situation or endanger his recovery by sum- 
moning any physician of that school in which opium is a 
sheet anchor. 

We have a twofold aim : to introduce and to bespeak 
a trial for the anti-bread, non-starch diet ; and to present 
what has been said before fragmentarily concerning 
hygiene and reform in medicine in such a systematic 
shape and with such force that large numbers will be 



PREFACE. vii 

induced to put these hygienic truths to the test of experi- 
ment in everyday life. 

Heretofore there has been an impassable gulf between 
hygienists (physicians of the reform school) and reme- 
dies which are of real value. We have aimed, while 
giving some new truths and a new form to some valuable 
old ones, to avoid fanaticism and the favoring of untried 
theories. 

The central thought on which this book is written is 
the confident belief that sickness and acute attacks of 
illness bear the same relation to diet that drunkenness 
bears to drink. It is quite indisputable that no one 
needs to get drunk ; all that is requisite to avoid inebria- 
tion is to abstain from intoxicating drinks. It is in this 
sense that we affirm that all cases of taking cold are 
the result of improper food, and more especially of 
excessive quantities even of proper food; and that 
acute attacks of illness invariably depend, either for a 
primary or a secondary cause, upon bad alimentation — 
improper food and food taken in excessive quantities ; 
and of these errors, excess is often the far greater factor. 

Here in England, at this time, the newspapers are 
scanned each day to learn the condition of a poet of 
world-wide fame, who has been confined to his bed for 
weeks but is now able to sit up ; also of a scientist of equal 
fame whose observations and contributions have enriched 
the field of physics, at the moment convalescent from an 
attack upon the lungs which has confined him to his bed 
for weeks. One of the foremost statesmen of America 
continually oscillates between his public duties and such 
attacks of illness as confine him to his bedroom. During 
every month of the year, and in every principal city of 
civilization, are to be seen similar examples. Learned, 
able, and useful men and women adorning all professions 
are rendered helpless by indispositions; and this is 
accepted quite as a matter of course and as a dispensa- 



viii PREFACE. 

tion of Providence. The reader is asked to peruse care- 
fully this book, and to consider seriously its proofs of 
the contention that all such illness and decrepitude are 
easily avoidable. 

We have not lost sight of the fact that zymotic 
diseases are the result of poison transmitted through the 
medium of the atmosphere ; but we also do not lose sight 
of the fact, well known to scientists, that these poison 
germs are powerless and harmless unless a favorable 
soil is found in the human body in which to germinate. 
The influenza, which recently caused such widespread 
illness and so many deaths throughout America and 
England, in some of the large provincial towns attacked 
all classes — physicians, clergymen, professional men of 
all kinds, and the latter quite as much as the laboring 
classes. At the same time, very many people who must 
necessarily have been equally exposed with those who 
succumbed to the scourge passed entirely untouched; 
this was not because these persons did not breathe the 
poison, but because the poison germ did not find in 
them a suitable soil in which to germinate. It is the 
same with taking cold. After one, by persisting in the 
habit of taking improper food, and especially in excess- 
ive quantities, has overloaded and overstrained his 
organism, an exposure to a draught brings on a cold 
which not infrequently settles into bronchitis or pneu- 
monia with a fatal termination ; another person sitting in 
the same draught feels only a momentary inconvenience 
from such change of temperature. Like the poison 
germ in the unsuitable soil, this draught finds the latter 
person with vigor so unimpaired that taking cold for the 
time is impossible. 

It is not affirmed that hereditary tendency to disease 
is not an important factor, and always to be considered. 
Persons inheriting weak constitutions, and a predis- 
position toward consumption, scrofula, cancer, or any 



PREFACE. ix 

serious disease, must of necessity exercise more care 
than those with more fortunate inheritance. All the 
same, we affirm that as the poison germ is powerless for 
evil except where there is a suitable soil, and as expos- 
ure to a draught does not induce a cold except where 
due preparation has been made by dietetic transgression, 
so an inherited weakness, a predisposition to disease, 
will never develop into the maladies with which the 
parents were afflicted except by persistence in unhygienic 
methods of life, of which errors in diet at the present 
day constitute a far greater share than is formed by all 
other transgressions combined. 

Good grounds are set forth for the belief that total 
abstinence not only from wine, beer, and alcohol in every 
form, but from tea and coffee as well, is demanded in 
the interest of health, and in obedience to hygienic law. 
A new explanation of the cause of intemperance is 
pointed out, as well as a new method for its cure. 

Although heretofore much has been written in favour 
of fruit eating, it will be seen, so long as men make 
cereals and starch vegetables the basis of their food, 
that fruit is and must continue to be simply an orna- 
ment, neglected and unused. 

The claim that fruit is composed of substantially the 
same elements as bread, and will take its place, will be 
a novelty to most readers ; but a careful scrutiny of the 
evidence adduced in favour of this contention will, it is 
believed, convince earnest students of the correctness of 
this claim. 

Throughout civilization the great bulk of the human 
/amily — the vegetarian and the mixed eaters alike — are 
oerealites; in the future, when the doctrines herein 
taught are understood and adopted, mankind will become 
"fruitarian. 

This claim is fraught with more meaning than is seen 
at first glance. A fruit diet, as set forth in the following 



x PREFACE. 

pages, means the solution of the problems of how to ban- 
ish disease and intemperance from the race ; to free us 
from the horrors of the shambles ; and to give us a food 
which is at once in accord with our higher instincts and 
the demands of aesthetics. 

The following quotation from an essay by Mrs. 
Densmore, which is found in Part II., may be taken as 
an epitome of this book : 

' ' Health is man s birthright. It is as natural to be 
well as to be born. All pathological conditions ', all diseases, 
and all tendencies to disease are the result of the trangres- 
sion of physiologic and hygienic law* This is the science of 
health in a nutshell." 

78, Elm Park Road, 

London, June, 1891. 






CONTENTS. 



PART I. 
How to Doctor. 

CHAPTER I. 

HEALTH. DISEASE. LAW OF CURE. 

PAGE 

Life based on nutrition 4 

Nature's engineering 5 

Healing power of nature 6 

Requisites for health 7 

The law of cure 8 

CHAPTER II. 

THE BASIC ERROR OF PHYSICIANS. 

Soothing by opium 10 

Obligation to physicians 11 

A fashionable fetish 12 

History repeats itself 13 

CHAPTER HI. 

DIFFERING MODES OF MEDICINE. 

Hygenic obedience cures 15 

Mind Cure physicians 16 

Progress in forty years 17 

Tendency toward recovery a law 18 

Drugs modify symptoms 19 

Fasting and food 20 

CHAPTER IV. 

HOW TO DOCTOR. 

Why fasting benefits 22 

Duration of fast «... 23 

Copious draughts of hot water 24 

How hot applications overcome pain 25 



Hot water soothes better than opium . 26 

; One cause of constipation . 27 

Law universal in its action 28 

Results of eating too much • • . 29 

Dr. Hall's cure for constipation . 30 

Value of herb tea cathartics ... 31 

A portable hot air bath 32 

Office of perspiration 33 

Further hygienic rules 34 

CHAPTER V. 

DIAGNOSIS. 

Normal number of heart beats 36 

Counting the pulse. A blood thermometer 37 

Degree of heat showing danger 38 

Temperature of feet and head ^"39 

Value of diagnosis 40 

CHAPTER VI. 

CONVALESCENCE. 

When to continue fasting 42 

When to eat, and what food 43 

Fruit, meat, and milk 44 

Eggs and milk for vegetarians 45 

Why water is the only wholesome drink 46 

No stimulants. Much fresh air 47 

Exercise and sleep 48 

Orthodox testimony 49 

Doctors generally powerless 50 

CHAPTER VII. 

TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN. 

Treatment for croup and diphtheria 52 

Cow's milk and woman's contrasted 53 

Infant's food— Mellin's, etc. ........ 54 

Improper feeding makes fretful babes 55 



PART II. 
How to Get Well and Keep Well. 

CHAPTER I. 

PRINCIPLES OF NUTRITION. 

Why avoid starch foods 58 

Fruit sugar better than starch 59 



Starch foods induce overeating ........ 60 

Simplicity in diet 61 

Value of nutrition 62 

Variety not necessary 63 

Relish for simple foods 64 

Milk with dates and figs 65 

Rule for quantity of food 66 

Meat and fruit diet By 

Tobacco, alcohol, and a simple diet 68 

The best sauce is hunger , . . 69 

Same food for different seasons 7° 

Same food for all work 71 

CHAPTER II. 

TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 

Theine, caffeine, bromine, and koline 73 

Tea and coffee poisonous 74 

Tea and tobacco related poisons 75 

Opium and coffee alike 76 

Tobacco a dangerous poison 77 

Familiar poisons grouped ......... 78 

All to be avoided 79 

CHAPTER III. 

THE OPEN WINDOW. 

England and America contrasted 81 

Dr. Jaeger's woolen clothing 82 

The Black Hole of Calcutta 83 

Inured to abuse 84 

Amount of ventilation needed 85 

CHAPTER IV. 

SLEEP AND HYGIENIC AIDS. 

Advantages of warm climates 87 

Undue strain injurious ......... 88 

Nature the true guide 89 

Best conditions for sleep 90 

CHAPTER V. 

BREATHING. 

-Indian children rarely die 92 

Office of the nostrils 93 

Infection by the mouth 94 

The immunity of Indians 95 

When mischief begins 96 

"* Sound teeth of savages 97 

The lung protector 98 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MORNING BATH. 

Injury from cold baths 100 

Importance of cleanliness ......... 101 

Home Turkish bath 102 

Hot water better than hot air 103 

Reaction guaranteed 104 

Homespun methods 105 

Health compensates for all 106 

Irksomeness removed by habit 107 

To enjoy a luxurious bath ......... 108 

A cold douche become harmless 109 

CHAPTER VII. 

FATHER KNEIPP'S WATER CURE. 

Father Kneipp's book . . . . - . . . . .Ill 

A patient saved by mildness 112 

Walking barefoot in wet grass 113 

CHAPTER Vin. 

TURKISH BATH AT HOME. 

Directions for bathing 115 

Temperature and duration 1 16 

Advantages over Turkish baths 117 

Much time saved 118 

A daily bath advised 119 

CHAPTER IX. 

EXERCISE. 

All kinds good 121 

Tricycling wearisome 122 

Exercise must be attractive 123 

Professor Wright's advice . 124 

Bicycling recommended 125 

CHAPTER X. 

THE SALISBURY METHOD OF CURE. 

Advantages claimed 127 

Unending circle of beneficent forces 128 

Preparing the Salisbury diet 129 

Fruit with meat preferred 130 

Rationale of the meat diet 131 

Food for the corpulent 132 

Why fruits are healthful 133 

Measured amount of food 134 



CHAPTER XI. 
COOKING. 

Cause of cooking cereals 136 

Reasons for cooking flesh 137 

y Non-starch food natural 138 

CHAPTER XII. 

PREPARATION OF FOOD. 

« 

Nitrogenous foods 140 

Why fish is preferred 141 

f A wholesome pudding 142 

Water the only wholesome drink 143 

■' Coarse grains irritate 144 

CHAPTER XIH. 

WHOLEMEAL BREAD. 

Bran indigestible and inflaming 146 

Inflammation causes flatulence 147 

Bran always damages bread ........ 148 

Professor Goodf ellow confirms . 149 

Scientific proofs against brown bread 150 

CHAPTER XIV. 

CONSERVATION OF FORCE. 

Town-bred boys excel farmers' sons 152 

Overstrain proves fatal 153 

Vital force proof against disease . 154 

All poison habits lower vitality 155 

Fear— an unread telegram kills 156 

All indulgence weakens 157 

f All transgressions lessen vital force 158 

CHAPTER XV. 

CORPULENCE — ITS CAUSE AND CURE. 

I Table of normal weights 160 

Increasing with age unnatural 161 

Dr. Page's testimony . . 162 

Starch foods cause corpulence 163 

Water drinking not the cause 164 

Obesity a disease ........... 165 

Treatment for reduction 166 

Some self-denial required 167 

Advantages of reduction 168 

A dangerous deformity .169 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE CURATIVE ACTION OF REGIMEN. 

\V Results of excess in food 171 

Some mistakes of vegetarians 172 

Injuries of diet cumulative . 173 

Not wholly bankrupt 174 

Dieting discouraged 175 

I Results of bread-and-milk diet 176 

To be ill is a sin 177 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE IMMORALITY OF FLESH-EATING. 

Vegetarian reasoning 179 

Common sense must rule 180 

Circumstances may demand meat-eating 181 

Health the first requisite 182 

CHAPTER XVHI. 

THE VALUE OF DRUGS IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE. 

Effect of quinine in malaria 184 

Warburgh's tincture 185 

Chronic sore eyes cured 186 

Effect of drugs in rheumatism ........ 187 

Hygienists need no medicine 188 

CHAPTER XIX. 

SUPERSTITION CONCERNING DOCTORS. FALSE MEDICAL ETHICS. 

Surgeons as such excepted 190 

Opium the modern delusion 191 

A monopoly in medicine 192 

Medical ethics screen the guilty 193 

Mental healing, or mind cure 194 

The question of advertising 195 

The Keely cure for drunkenness ........ 196 

Madame del Cin 197 

Medical tyranny 198 

Medical tyranny in England . ....... 199 

Dr. Alabone's persecution • . • • 200 

Dr. Pye Smith on doctors 201 

Sir John Forbes' testimony 202 

From Dr. Kimball and others 203 

Drs. Richardson and Gardner 204 

Professor Clark and Dr. Ramage, F.R.C.S 205 

From James Johnson, M.D., F.R.S 206 

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes . . 207 

Dr. Samuel Wilks — the famous Majendie 208 

The indictment completed 209 




CHAPTER XX. 

DINNERS AND DINING. 

Fashionable large dinners . . . . . . . . 21 1 

Select private dinner 212 

Sir Henry's view of moderation . 213 

Fruit considered an ornament 214 

All depends upon the point of view 215 

Avoidable errors in diet . . .216 

Sir Henry Thomson inconsistent . 217 

Hunger is the best sauce . . . 218 

Simplicity more healthful . . . . ' 219 



PART III. 

The Natural Food of Man. 

CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL SURVEY. 

Natural term of life ,.'■-. 222 

Animals in nature always well 223 

) What is man's natural food ? 224 

j Fruits give greatest relish 225 

/Fruit and bread — essential differences 226 

Natural food digested in main stomach 227 

Man's digestive organs unchanged by habit 228 

The theory confirmed by facts 229 

The Salisbury meat diet 230 

Though vegetarians, prescribed flesh food . . . . . .231 

x The milk, grape, and spa cures . 232 

The author's personal experience 233 

s One man's meat another's poison 234 

Confirmed by tens of thousands 235 

CHAPTER II. 

OFFICE OF THE SALIVA. 

Professor Goodfellow's experiments 237 

Goodfellow's experiments continued 238 

Experiments continued 239 

Experiments on raw starch . . 240 

Starch not digested in stomach ...,..«. 241 

Fruit pre-digested by nature « 242 

Why toasting bread aids digestion ....... 243 



CHAPTER III. 

CAUSE AND CURE OF CONSTIPATION. 

Why fruit is aperient 245 

Why bread is constipating 246 

Starch food retained too long ........ 247 

CHAPTER IV. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS. 

Truth always harmonious 249 

CHAPTER V. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — ROWBOTHAM. 

A plea for progress 251 

Why common salt is harmful ........ 252 

Bread the staff of death . 253 

Cause of premature old age ......... 254 

Substitute for distilled water 255 

Experiments upon fowls 256 

Upon a dog, horse, and man 257 

Experiment upon mother and child 258 

-* Childbirth naturally painless 259 

Effect of fruit on parturition 260 

Another striking example 261 

The more fruit and less bread the better 262 

Effect of diet on teeth 263 

Effect of diet on complexion and old age ...... 264 

Cereal foods induce early death 265 

Fruit and meat promote health and life 266 

Historical proofs 267 

South Sea Islanders. Herodotus 268 

Why the Irish excel the English 269 

Wild hog and long-lived birds 270 

Elephant, horse, dog, and monkey 271 

Why the poor die sooner than the rich 272 

Diet of long-lived Egyptians , . . . 273 

Examples of longevity .......... 274 

Jenkins and the patriarchs 275 

The more food taken the more deaths 276 

Abstaining from bread saves life 277 

CHAPTER VI. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — DR. DE LACY EVANS. 

The Macrobiotic art 279 

Bacon on facts 280 

Causes of old age 281 



Youth and old age contrasted 282 

<Z Ossification caused by wrong food 283 

Proper diet prevents ossification 284 

Age of the patriarchs 285 

Fruits are best, cereals are worst 286 

Testimony of Hesiod 287 

Experience of primitive man 288 

The return to nature 289 

Diet of American Indians 290 

Persians and Ethopians 291 

Why human milk is better than cow's milk 292 

Cause of cretinism 293 

Fruit and temperance required 294 

Instances of longevity 295 

Harvey and Old Parr 296 

A man 180 years old 297 

Longevity in animals 298 

Advantages of distilled water 299 

Importance of health studies 300 

Death the universal terror 301 

The philosopher's stone 302 

Fruit compared with cereals 303 

CHAPTER VII. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — PROFESSOR GUBLER. 

The greater immunity of the rich 305 

The diet of the poor causes early death 306 

How ossification is caused 307 

Experimental proofs 308 

The peasants of Orleans 309 

Degeneration of Trappists 310 

CHAPTER VIII. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — DR. WINCKLER (ALANUS). 

Personal experience 312 

Drs. Monin, Raymond and Freille 313 

CHAPTER IX. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — HOLBROOK. 

Chemical action of potash 315 

Starch foods demand salt 316 

The diet of Africans . 317 

CHAPTER X. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — DR. FOTHERGILL AND HERBERT SPENCER. 

* Pre-digested foods recommended 319 

* Fruits contrasted with bread 320 



Advantages of a fruit diet 321 

Confirmed by Herbert Spencer . • • 322 

Bread insipid, fruit wholesome 323 

Vital force saved by proper food . 324 

Drs. Fothergill and Holbrook confirm ....... 325 

Grapes instead of bread ......... 326 

CHAPTER XI. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. 

Testimony of Huxley and Haeckel ....... 328 

Proven by the microscope 329 

Many traits in common ...... . . . . . . . 330 

Diet of long-armed apes 331 

Why the gorilla eats seeds 332 

Apes do not use cereals ... . . . . . . . . 333 

Man's stomach unchanged by evolution ...... 334 

Comparative anatomy — A table 335 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — FRUITS AND NUTS VERSUS CEREALS. 

Necessity stimulates development ....... 337 

A Divine plan ........... 338 

The fig a food of the ancients 339 

The vine and the date 340 

Humboldt and Linnaeus on the date ....... 341 

Arabia's national food . ......... 342 

Bananas in many countries . 343 

Prolific yield of the banana — Humboldt . . • . . „ 344 

Importance of Qil ......... , 345 

Longevity of the olive ........... 346 

Productiveness of the Brazil nut ........ 347 

Fruits superior to cereals 348 

A splendid prospect 349 



CHAPTER XIII. 

VALUE OF FOREST TREES. 



Effect of trees on climate 
Result of destroying trees 
Effect on the rainfall 
Cereal raising destroys trees 
Results following fruit raising 
Trees increase available fertility 



351 

352 
353 
354 
355 
356 



CHAPTER XIV. 

IN LINE WITH PROGRESS. 



Manifold drawbacks to cereals 
Fourier on hours of labour . 



358 
359 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF LAW. 

Grain not the natural food of cattle 361 

Cereals natural only to birds 362 

Man not an exception to the universal rule 363 

CHAPTER XVI. 

LONGEVITY OF MAN. 

What diseases are increasing 365 

Wisdom comes with advanced age 366 

That great longevity is natural, proven by science .... 367 

Longevity not now increasing 368 

Longevity incontestably decreasing 369 

Still more unsatisfactory reflections ....... 370 

Insanity and suicide increasing 371 

Old age free from decrepitude 372 

Development late in life 373 

Literary power in middle life ........ 374 

Wisdom developed late in life 375 

Serene old age a Divine triumph 376 

Cato and Cicero 377 

Formula of Flourens and Buffon 378 

No short cut to longevity 379 

Citizens of cities always deteriorate ....... 380 

CHAPTER XVII. 

INTEMPERANCE — ITS RELATION TO STARCH FOOD. 

Result of overstrain 382 

Inadequate nutrition a cause 383 

Grows by what it feeds on 384 

Benefits from vegetarianism explained 385 

Combining advantages of both 386 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

SUMMING UP. 

r Cures from the non-starch diet 388 

Confirmed by Professor Goodfellow 389 

Testimony of a physician — Rowbotham 390 

De Lacy Evans and Professor Gubler 391 

\ Cereals call for salt 392 

The tropics teaming with fruit 393 

Universal law and progress 394 

Cause of intemperance 395 



CHAPTER XIX. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE. 



Benefits from a meat diet explained 
Natural food theory solves problems 
Sylvester Graham's great delusion 
Sugar, stimulants, and potash 
Cause of drunkenness. Forestry 
Paradise regained .... 
Open and unwrinkled brow of age 
Possibilities of longevity 
"0 happy earth ! reality of heaven ! " 



397 

398 
399 
400 
401 
402 

403 
404 

405 



PART L 
HOW TO DOCTOR. 



How Nature Cures. 



chapter I. 

HEALTH. DISEASE. LAW OF CURE. 

" Go wash in Jordan." — II. Kings v. io. 

What is health? 

What is disease? 

What is the law of cure? 

All growth, development, repair, and maintenance 
of tissue, as also development and maintenance of vital 
power, are the result of nutrition. Elementary physi- 
ology teaches that a primary cell enlarges, divides into 
two or more cells; these in turn divide and multiply 
until there is produced an aggregation of cells, and the 
first beginnings of tissue growth. Soon there are seen 
to be cells of different qualities having specific and char- 
acteristic functions ; these related cells are seen to unite 
and co-operate in the formation of nerve, muscular, and 
connective tissue, of cartilage, of bone, and of the net- 
work of tissue seen in animal life. From the very be- 
ginning of this development and differentiation, the 
chief requisite for healthy growth — after the required 
temperature, light, and air — is nutrition. When the 
animal has attained to its full development and growth 
there remains only the work of keeping up the tempera- 
ture, and of repairing the waste of tissue consequent 



4 LIFE BASED ON NUTRITION. 

upon exercise and activity ; there is need only of nutri- 
tion in the form of air, water, and food. 

This is a universal law in organic life, as applicable 
to a grass-plot or a tree as to the organism of an animal. 
If a grass-plot has sunshine, warmth, moisture, and fer- 
tility (or food), there is health and growth. If food or 
moisture or warmth be taken away, there is sickness; 
and if continued, there is death. No medicine is needed 
to secure a restoration of health and vigor to the plant 
that has thus been made ill ; all that is necessary is to 
supply any or all of the lacking elements of nutrition — 
light, warmth, moisture, or food. 

It is a universal law of organic life, be it vegetable or 
animal, that all tendencies are toward health. It is as 
natural to be well as to be born. 

Note the grass-plot before instanced. It may be ever 
so brown from the summer sun and drought, or scarcity 
of fertility; if disorganization be not already set in, if 
there yet be life, all that is needed to restore the beautiful 
green color and vigorous growth to the grass is to supply 
it with whatever elements of nutrition it has been de- 
prived of — sunshine, warmth, rain, or fertility — and it 
at once begins to mend ; in a few weeks green blades 
have taken the place of seared ones, and in a short 
time there is often no trace of previous lack of vigor. 

If the bone of a man or any animal be broken, and 
the parts replaced, the presiding and guiding force of the 
animal economy — call it nature or what you will — at once 
deposits a liquid substance over the entire surface of the 
bone a short distance in opposite directions from the 
fracture. This liquid soon hardens into a bone-like sub- 
stance and becomes a ring firmly attached to each section 
of the broken bone, and for a time affords the chief sup- 
port whereby the damaged limb can be used. In due 
time the ends of the bone — which, perhaps, had been 
entirely severed — become united; nature establishes a 



NATURE'S ENGINEERING. 5 

circulation through its parts, whereby each part is again 
nourished; and the limb, having its broken bone re- 
united, is able to support the weight of the body without 
calling upon the strength of the bone ring which had 
been temporarily built around the fractured bone. What 
happens? Nature, finding no doubt that all needless 
supports are a damage, proceeds to soften and absorb this 
bone ring until it is all removed except a slight portion 
for an eighth or a quarter of an inch about the point of 
fracture. 

A similar and more familiar phenomenon is seen 
whenever the skin is broken : at once there is an exuda- 
tion of blood ; this coagulates upon exposure to the air, 
and forms an excellent air-tight protection (a scab) to the 
injured part, which remains for a longer or shorter 
period, as may be needed ; and when nature has formed 
a new skin underneath, and the scab is no longer re- 
quired, nature proceeds to undermine and separate it; 
and while as long as it was needed it was firmly at- 
tached, so soon as no longer required it falls off of its 
own weight. 

A sliver becomes imbedded in the flesh — a frequent 
accident. If a surgeon is at hand and removes it, well 
and good — nature soon repairs the damage ; if the sliver 
is permitted to remain, nature at once sets about a bit of 
engineering. First there is pain and inflammation ; then 
follows a formation of pus ; this in due time breaks down 
the tissues immediately surrounding the sliver, especially 
toward the surface of the limb ; the pus increases, breaks 
through, runs out, and sooner or later carries the sliver 
with it. 

These everyday occurrences are as familiar to the 
layman as to the physician ; but the strange part of it is 
the fact that almost no one — layman or physician — seems 
to understand thai these and like processes of nature are all 
the healing force there is. It does not matter what the 



6 HEALING POWER OF NATURE. 

trouble may be — a sliver in the flesh, or a lodgment in 
the organism of the poison germs of typhoid fever — no 
medicine is required or will benefit ; all that is needed is 
that the conditions demanded by nature be supplied, 
and the same mysterious force which we call life, which 
builds a bone ring support whenever and wherever it is 
needed, and at once places a most admirable protection 
in the shape of a scab wherever there is an abrasion of 
the skin, will prove itself as well able successfully to 
handle an attack of typhoid fever as a broken bone or an 
abrased skin. 

Take a person in the full vigour of life and health. 
A good night's sleep has been had, the usual breakfast 
eaten, the forenoon's task performed, and the person is 
about to sit down to luncheon with a vigorous appetite. 
A telegram is received which states that a son or daugh- 
ter or near friend has just been killed or has unex- 
pectedly died. The same force which we call nature, 
and which strengthens a broken bone with a bone ring, 
at once takes away all appetite, all desire to eat, from the 
afflicted person. Why is the appetite taken away ? 
Because the process of digestion is a draught upon the 
nervous system, and requires a considerable amount of 
nerve force ; and a person suddenly bereaved has need of 
the entire force of the nervous system to enable him or 
her to endure the strain. This is but another manifesta- 
tion of that force which builds a bone ring support 
around a broken bone, adjusts a temporary but air- 
excluding and efficient protection over a wound, and 
burrows round, loosens and ejects a foreign substance 
which has become embedded in the flesh. 

As for the grass-plot, it is quite universally known 
that growth and vigour always follow upon a supply of 
the necessary conditions — sunshine, warmth, moisture, 
and food. If from the outset the plant has had these 
necessaries, an unvarying vigour results ; if the gardener 



REQUISITES FOR HEALTH. 7 

perceives a failing colour in the plant, or any other sign 
of disease, he knows that some of the necessary condi- 
tions of grass life are lacking. If this inquiry be ex- 
tended to the examination of more complex forms of 
life, it will be found that the same law obtains. The 
fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, and the wild ani- 
mals of the wood are quite usually found in perfect 
health and vigour. When the fisherman or the hunter 
finds an exception to this rule, he knows at once that 
some of the normal conditions of animal life have been 
wanting ; there has been a lack (in the absence of poison 
or injury from violence) of food, or water, or light, or 
warmth. 

It will be seen, after the most searching scrutiny from 
whatever point of view, that a tendency toward an abound- 
ing health and vigour is inseparable from life; and, more- 
over, whenever and wherever the normal conditions of 
healthy life have been interfered with, and weakness, 
lassitude, or any of the symptoms of ill-health appear, as 
soon as the conditions natural to the organism are restored, a 
movement toward health is always sure to follow. 

Bearing these basic principles in view, it becomes an 
easy task to answer the questions asked at the beginning 
of this chapter : 

(1) Health is the undeviating expression of animal 
(indeed of all organic) life, always concomitant where the 
conditions natural to the animal are undisturbed. 

(2) Disease always ensues upon a disturbance of the 
conditions of life natural to the animal, and is an unfail- 
ing and friendly expression on the part of the system of 
an effort to rid itself of conditions and substances inimi- 
cal to health. The feat of engineering performed by the 
ruling force of the organism in building a bone ring sup- 
port around adjacent ends of a broken bone may very 
properly be defined as a curative action on the part of this 
ruling force. The inflammation and pain consequent 



8 THE LAW OF CURE. 

upon the presence of a sliver or any foreign body in the 
flesh, the formation of pus, and the subsequent expulsion 
from the body both of the pus and the foreign body which 
caused it, are further expressions of curative action. It 
is one of the objects of this publication to adduce conclu- 
sive proofs that all disease and all manifestations of dis- 
ease are friendly efforts and curative actions made by the 
organism in its efforts to restore the conditions of health. 
(3) The law of cure may be defined as the unfailing ten- 
dency on the part of the organism toward health; and since 
disease, as above defined, is but the expression and re- 
sult of a disturbance of the conditions natural to life, the 
only useful office of the physician is to restore those con- 
ditions ; and there will be seen to follow, as a result of 
the law of cure, the disappearance of disease and the es- 
tablishment of health. 



CHAPTER II. 
THE BASIC ERROR OF PHYSICIANS. 

It has been pointed out that the necessary conditions 
for the restoration of health to the grass-plot are very 
simple, and consist chiefly in adequate nutrition. A 
close study of the subject will show that the necessary 
conditions for the restoration of a human being to health 
(where disorganization has not already taken place) are 
also very simple, and also consist chiefly in adequate 
nutrition. 

Dr. Abernethy, a century ago, declared that the three 
prime rules for health are: keep the feet warm, keep 
the head cool, and keep the bowels open. If an obedi- 
ence to these rules and a few others equally simple is all 
that is required when a person is taken ill, why is it that 
learned physicians and scientists have been so much in 
error in the matter of therapeutics? An examination of 
the methods of operation of orthodox old-school medi- 
cine shows that these physicians, although able, learned, 
earnest, and scientific, have been utterly misled as to the 
nature of disease. They have considered disease an 
organized enemy and positive force, which has taken up 
a position within the body and is carrying on a warfare 
with the vital powers ; and the legion of heroic remedies 
(so-called) which orthodox physicians have prescribed 
and are prescribing for suffering invalids are the shot 
and shell hurled at the invisible enemy, in the hope of 
dislodging and expelling it. Not understanding the law 
of cure — that there is always coincident with life a tend- 
ency toward health — these well-meaning physicians have 
accepted a recovery made in spite of their medicines as 



io SOOTHING BY OPIUM. 

the result of their (so-called) remedies. A person who 
has for some time been overeating, and whose system has 
become clogged by a failure of the skin, kidneys, and 
bowels to throw off the residue of the surfeit, after per- 
haps a more than usually hard day's work, and when 
there is left little vital force to grapple with digestion, 
eats a more than usually hearty dinner. In a few hours 
there is complete stagnation of the digestive organs, 
excruciating pain in the region of the stomach and 
bowels, the extremities become cold, pulse rapidly in- 
creased, and a doctor is hurriedly summoned. The 
patient pleads with him for something to ease the pain, 
feeling sure that death is threatened unless something is 
done at once to alleviate it. Both the patient and his 
physician know that the pain and inflammation caused by 
a sliver in the flesh are friendly efforts on the part of 
a foreign body ; but neither the patient nor his physician 
is aware that the greater pain and inflammation resultant 
upon ingestion of an indigestible dinner are equally 
the result of a friendly effort of nature to rid the system 
of the dangerous presence of what has become, from the 
inability of an overstrained digestive system to cope with 
it, also a foreign body. The physician looks wise, and 
as often as not administers opium ; the nerves of sensa- 
tion are paralyzed by the drug, and the patient no longer 
feels the pain, not because anything has been done to 
remove the cause of the illness, but because the fire- 
alarms, so to speak — the warning signals — of nature 
have been by the drug prevented from ringing, and the 
exhausted patient falls to sleep. Now nature has an 
additional difficulty to deal with: before it was bad 
enough, but it was only the result of a bad habit of life 
and an extra unwholesome dinner ; now there is added 
the doctor and his drugs. This patient, who under 
proper hygienic treatment would have been out of all 
pain in a few hours, and about his usual work in a day 



OBLIGATION TO PHYSICIANS. n 

or two, is lucky if he gets out of the doctor's hands in a 
week or a month, if indeed he recovers at all; and when 
he finally pulls through, with several weeks' loss of 
time, a considerable doctor's bill, and a damaged con- 
stitution, he feels under great obligation to his physican 
for having skillfully saved his life. Nor is the patient 
alone in his delusion ; usually the doctor is, equally with 
his patient, ignorant of the damage he has wrought. Like 
his patient, he is utterly at sea as to the cause of illness 
and pain, and the law of cure ; and it is not strange that 
he should be deluded, and fancy he has helped in a 
recovery that nature not only has brought about in spite 
of him, but which his own efforts have been the chief 
factor in retarding. 

On the other hand, had the same patient known 
enough to apply hot fomentations or hot bottles to the 
region of pain, — to swallow a half -pint of hot water every 
five or eight minutes, until either the pain was relieved 
or the contents of the stomach ejected by vomiting (and 
this may require a gallon or more), — to have taken an 
herb tea cathartic sufficient thoroughly to cleanse the 
bowels, — to see to it that his feet were kept warm, that 
he was well covered in bed, with the window wide 
open, and that he abstained from all food for a couple 
of days, calling no doctor and using no drugs — under such 
treatment, this patient would have been up and at work 
in a day or two, feeling all the better for the enforced 
rest of himself and his stomach. What follows under 
these circumstances? The neighboring doctors and all 
the friends and acquaintances of the patient feel quite 
sure that he was not really ill, since if he had been such 
mild methods could not have cured him. 

And this failure, alike on the part of the physician 
and patient, to understand that all illness and pain is 
only an effort on the part of nature to rid the system of 
disease, and that a tendency toward recovery and health 



12 A FASHIONABLE FETISH. 

is an inseparable part of life, explains why it is that for 
generations and for ages there has been a constant 
change in methods of doctoring, coincident with an undy- 
ing faith in the efficacy of the doctor and his methods. 
A patient is taken ill, a doctor is called, and in a great i 
majority of cases the patient recovers ; superficially the 
sending for the doctor seems to have been wise. Upon 
reflection it will be seen that fetishism has the same justi- 
fication for existence. Some wooden god is cringingly 
approached by the friends of a sick man, or the services 
of the "medicine man" secured on his behalf, and as 
these methods are often merely ceremonial, and appeal 
rather to the imagination than to the stomach, and so 
give the system time for a curative action, wonderful 
cures are of course the result. Only a few score of 
years ago bleeding was the orthodox fetish. George 
Washington is taken ill with a slight indisposition ; the 
doctor is summoned, the patient bled and made worse. 
Again the physician comes, again the patient is bled, 
and seen to be alarmingly weak. The third bleeding 
finishes him off ; a nation is bereaved, and mourns that 
the most eminent skill has been unable to save their 
beloved president. 

Times change, generations come and go, but the 
fetish of the doctor remains. President Garfield is assas- 
sinated ; the doctors come in squads, there is daily prob- 
ing for the bullet which, after one thorough search, 
should have been left undisturbed, and there is perpet- 
ual feeding of a patient who plainly needed fasting. The 
victim is a man of vigour, in middle life, and makes a 
gallant fight for life ; the weeks come and go, the long 
line of doctors daily files into his room, the daily probing 
for the bullet is gone through ; the inevitable result is 
reached at last — the illustrious patient is gathered to his 
fathers. The post mortem examination is held, and the 
bullet found to be encysted and harmless. 



HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. 13 

At the time of Washington's death a few laymen and 
a few unlicensed practitioners of healing knew that bleed- 
ing was all wrong, and that the great man's death was 
brought about by his attending physicians ; his bereaved 
family and a great nation attributed his death to a dis- 
pensation of Providence, and mourned that his skilled 
physicians were not able to save his life. To-day the 
orthodox profession are quite well aware that Washing- 
ton was doctored to death. History repeats itself. At 
the time of President Garfield's death many radical and 
progressive physicians as well as thinking laymen knew 
full well that the death of the martyred president was 
hastened and probably brought about by his ignorant and 
meddlesome doctors ; and before a half century goes by 
this same orthodox medical profession will be as con- 
vinced that Garfield's death was hastened if not caused 
by his doctors, as they now are that Washington's death 
was caused by the treatment administered by his attend- 
ing physicians. 



CHAPTER III. 

DIFFERING MODES OF MEDICINE. THE HEAL- 
ING POWER OF NATURE. 

During the last half century the homoeopathic system 
of medicine has increased in public favour, until at the 
present time, in many American towns and cities physi- 
cians of this school are doing fully one-half the medical 
practice, and have a decided majority of patients among 
the more wealthy and cultured citizens. Attention is 
called to the impossibility of reconciling the practice of 
these antagonistic systems. If the allopathists, with 
their heroic doses of poisons, have any reason or truth 
on their side, then the homceopathists, with their reme- 
dies so attenuated and diluted that they can have no 
practical or material influence upon the physical organ- 
ism, are a monstrous delusion and fraud; if, on the 
other hand, the homceopathist succeeds as well or better 
than the allopathist, it proves that the injurious and 
dangerous poisons administered by the latter are not 
necessary or even useful, to say the least, and therefore, 
because of their poisonous nature, ought not to be used. 
If the theory of health, disease, and the law of cure ad- 
vanced in the preceding chapters be correct, both the 
allopathist and the homceopathist are equally deluded ; 
each are attributing cures to their respective remedies 
which have been brought about by the healing powers 
of nature — that same force that builds a bone ring in 
time of need, that takes away the appetite when it is best 
not to take food, and that always adapts means to ends 
with a nicety transcending human understanding, in our 
present ignorance of the mysteries of life. 



HYGIENIC OBEDIENCE CURES. 15 

If our theory of health, disease, and the law of cure 
be correct, it follows that the homoeopathic practice will 
be more successful than the allopathic, not necessarily 
because there is virtue in the infinitesimal dose, but be- 
cause the serious damage wrought by the severe and 
poisonous remedies of the old school is avoided, and this 
is what statistics prove. 

If the before-mentioned theory of health, disease, 
and the law of cure be true, and if all that is needed to 
effect a cure is to supply hygienic conditions, then it 
follows that those patients who have had no medicine, 
and who have relied upon hygienic conditions to effect 
a recovery, have been as successful as those patients who 
have relied upon homoeopathic remedies ; and this is 
precisely what will be found to have happened. In such 
establishments as the Sanatorium at Danville, New 
York, and also the one at Battle Creek, Michigan, it 
will be found that patients who have had no medicine 
whatever, but who have had the benefit of baths, of a 
simple and abstemious diet, well- ventilated sleeping 
rooms, with recreation and exercise, have made quite 
as remarkable recoveries as any that have occurred under 
homoeopathic treatment. 

The allopathic, homoeopathic, and hygienic systems of 
treatment do not exhaust the catalogue. Throughout 
America may be found botanic physicians who treat dis- 
ease by administering herbal remedies, and also eclectic 
physicians whose remedies were originally herbal ; more 
recently, however, these physicians have incorporated 
medical colleges, and established schools of medicine, 
but their remedies in the main will be found to bear no 
relation to those of the old school. 

There has grown up in America, in a little more than 
a decade, a school of medicine (this term is used in the 
sense of the prevention, alleviation,- and cure of disease) 
which is attracting wide attention : it is called Mind Cure 



1 6 MIND CURE PHYSICIANS. 

or Mental Healing. Not only are remedies prohibited, 
but even reliance upon hygienic measures discouraged. 
Patients are told that food and drink have no influence 
on health and disease ; they are recommended to eat and 
drink as their habit or fancy directs. The notable suc- 
cess of this treatment was so great that hundreds of these 
physicians set up in the business of treating patients, 
and the occupation of the old-school physicians seemed 
threatened ; so much so that considerable efforts have 
been made by these doctors to procure legislation to 
protect them in the monopoly of doctoring by preventing 
mental healers and irregular physicians of all sorts from 
practicing medicine. 

If there is, co-existent with life, a tendency toward 
health, — if pain and disease are friendly efforts on the 
part of nature to rid the organism of conditions or foreign 
substances which are unfavorable to health, — if in case of 
an attack of illness all that needs to be done is to restore 
those conditions, the interference with which has caused 
the attack of illness, it is easy to understand why the 
various systems of medicine, differing so widely in their 
remedies and their modes of practice, are alike in one 
general result, namely: the great majority of persons 
recover who are attacked with illness — pain, fever, de- 
lirium, or whatever it may be. Fetish worship has no 
influence upon this recovery. Whether the patient be a 
Polynesian, placing entire reliance upon the virtue of 
some stock or stone, or a resident of one of the foremost 
cities in civilization, employing the fetish in the shape of 
an allopathist, a homceopathist, an eclectic, a hygienic, or 
a mind- cure physician, the cure has been effected by what 
the ancients called vis medicatrix naturce — the healing 
power of nature. The first great requisite is time. This 
is demanded by all physicians, of whatever school. The 
next great requisite is constituted of hygienic conditions. 
These are but imperfectly understood by all the schools of 



PROGRESS IN FORTY YEARS. 17 

medical practice ; still, there has been considerable gain 
en these lines in forty years. We can remember a time 
when no water was permitted a fever patient ; now these 
patients are usually given all they crave. Then the win- 
dows of the sick-room were kept deliberately closed, as 
if the pure air of heaven were a lurking enemy ; now 
there is some little apprehension in the minds of most 
of the orthodox physicians that a stifled atmosphere, 
fetid with the breath of human beings, is unfavorable to 
health, as well as to recovery from illness. Then there 
was no thought of bathing and little of clean linen ; now 
it is quite generally understood that there should be fre- 
quent bathing, as well as frequent change of linen ; and, 
thanks to Dr. Jaeger, it is beginning to be known that 
clean woolen garments, both in underclothing and bed- 
clothes, are greatly superior to those made from vege- 
table fiber, be they cotton or linen. With the two great 
requisites for recovery, time and the necessary hygienic 
conditions, all cures are effected by the healing power of 
nature. If there were any necessary virtue in the opium, 
mercury, digitalis, belladonna, arsenic, etc. of the old 
school, the homceopathist could not cure so many patients 
as they who use these violent remedies. Statistics and 
common observations prove that they cure a larger 
proportion of patients. If there were any necessary 
virtue in the homoeopathic remedies, the hygienic physi- 
cian, who uses no medicine whatever, could not effect so 
large a proportion of cures as the homceopathist. The 
hygienic physicians, unlike the homoeopathists, have no 
hospitals and no statistics, but all fair-minded persons 
acquainted with both the homoeopathists and those hy- 
gienists who use no medicine, and whose therapeutic 
remedies consist mainly in baths and water-cure appli- 
ances, are obliged to testify, at least that the former do. 
not succeed any better than the latter. Again, the mind- 
cure physicians, paying no attention to hygiene, and dis- 



18 TENDENCY TOWARD RECOVERY A LAW. 

daining the use of baths or any internal remedies or 
external applications, have made some cures as remark- 
able as those of the hygienists or the homceopathists. 
It must be borne in mind, however, that although the 
mind-cure rs declaim against hygiene, their patients, all 
the same, in obedience to universal custom, adopt much 
the same hygienic conditions as the average hygienist 
or enlightened homceopathist. It must not be forgotten 
also that fifty and one hundred years ago, with all the 
midnight darkness as to bleeding, absurd remedies, 
airtight rooms and the prohibition of water, a great 
majority of persons attacked with illness recovered. 
And why? Because life and that mysterious and seem- 
ingly intelligent force that rules over the organism is 
the only healing power ; because it is a law of life that 
there is always a tendency toward recovery; and be- 
cause this law of cure is always operative whether we 
bleed, or stifle, or purge — whether we invoke the sacred 
serpent or the fetishes of civilization, avail ourselves of 
the services of an allopathist, a homoeopathist, a bota- 
nist, an eclectic, a hygienist, or a mind-curer. 

There have been modifying influences at work which 
have tended to make the general outcome similar as to 
eventual recovery, whether we compare the results of 
the many diverse methods of medical practice of the 
present time, or contrast the results of the bleeding and 
stifling of a half century ago with (in these regards) 
the more enlightened practice of the present day. It is 
quite true that the old-time doctor bled and thereby 
depleted the victims of his ignorance ; but he also put 
his fever patients on a gruel diet which was composed 
chiefly of water ; and the comparative fast, as contrasted 
with the feeding-up fad, which in recent years is coming 
so much into vogue, did much to neutralize the damage 
done by the bleeding. They also had more vigour 
because they lived a simpler life. So, too, the allopa- 



DRUGS MODIFY SYMPTOMS. 19 

thist, while working serious and not infrequently fatal 
damage with his opium, belladonna, digitalis, and 
various and gratuitous poisons, usually gives a cathartic 
which thoroughly opens the bowels. Dr. Abernethy's 
injunction to "keep the bowels open" cannot well 
receive too much attention ; and the old-school practice, 
handicapped as it is with its baneful and useless poisons, 
has a very great advantage over those homceopathists 
and hygienists who suffer their patients to go on indefi- 
nitely with constipated bowels and a clogged system. 

The reader is cautioned against forming the conclu- 
sion that we deny, as so many hygienists do, that the 
remedies of the allopathist and the homceopathist ever do 
any good. These remedies are usually aimed at the 
symptoms rather than at the cause of disease, and that 
they have a modifying influence upon these symptoms is 
very true ; and in the absence of a knowledge of the 
very great importance of hygienic remedies, and of how 
to use them, that these modifying influences are some- 
times valuable is not denied. It is our claim that when 
the law of cure and the nature and curative action of 
disease are clearly understood, these remedies are not 
needed, and the damaging drugs of the old school are 
always to be avoided. It is not enough that the 
earnest searcher after health should know the nature 
of the disease and the law of cure : he must know 
also the conditions necessary to aid nature in its efforts 
toward recovery, and when he has mastered these — 
and the most necessary conditions are simple and easily 
understood — he must learn the great importance of re- 
fraining from employing a physician when he finds 
himself or a member of his family taken ill. This course 
is most important for two reasons : the old-school doctor 
is quite sure to prescribe remedies (so-called) which will 
greatly damage the patient and retard his recovery ; and 
even the homceopathist will unite with his old-school 



20 FASTING AND FOOD. 

comrade in urging the patient to take food when an 
absolute fast is of prime importance; and also, when 
foods are to be taken, these doctors are quite sure to 
urge wrong foods and excessive quantities. 

A discussion of the conditions necessary to aid nature 
in her efforts toward recovery is reserved for the follow- 
ing chapters. It is readily admitted that there is nothing 
new in the statement that doctors do far more harm than 
good (surgery, its great importance, and the marvelous 
improvements made in this science in recent years are 
not discussed in these pages ; it is to the usual physician 
and his remedies that attention is called). Indeed, testi- 
mony could hardly be stronger and language more to the 
point than that advanced and uttered by some of the 
most eminent and successful of the old-school physi- 
cians ; and a few selections from these opinions are 
quoted on pages 201 to 209. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW TO DOCTOR. 

Farmers, horsemen, and probably many others are 
well aware that when a cow or a horse becomes ill it 
usually refuses food. Moreover, even in those instances 
where a sick horse is willing to eat, its treatment 
usually commences by all food being taken away. The 
dictates of common sense unite in urging this course, as 
it is plain that, since the universal method of overcom- 
ing fatigue is to rest, our overworked or tired stomachs 
should also have rest. Science and physiology teach 
that digestion of food can only be performed satisfac- 
torily when there is secretion of the digestive juices; 
and also that there can be no adequate secretion of the 
digestive juices where there is inflammation, or from 
any cause an absence of appetite. 

The horse is readily permitted and encouraged to 
abstain from food when at all out of sorts ; and why men 
can be so wise about their horses and so wrong about 
themselves, their wives, and their children is not easily 
explained. The. force of custom is one of the strongest 
powers, and doctors and nurses for generations have been 
in the habit of urging invalids to partake of food, not 
infrequently to their serious injury. We all have an 
instinct that life, growth, recovery from illness, and 
maintenance of health come from nourishment ; and 
our unreasoning sympathy and solicitude prompt us 
to urge our invalid friends to partake of food. What- 
ever the origin of the custom, it is one universally 



22 WHY FASTING BENEFITS. 

to be condemned; when one is seriously ill a fast 
is indicated; and this is of as much more importance 
for a man out of health than for a horse as a human 
being is of more importance than an animal. As 
soon as attention is called to this need for fasting in 
illness, one at once sees that there are a priori reasons 
why it must be true. If, as physiologists teach, there 
can be no effective digestion except from the secretion 
of digestive juices, and if there is almost no secretion of 
digestive juices where there is high temperature, we 
ought to expect that there would be as much emacia- 
tion of the fever patient while partaking of food as while 
fasting ; and this is precisely what will be seen to be the 
result by any physician who will make the experiment. 
Common sense teaches that if food is taken and not 
digested, such food does not help nourish the system. 
If no food at all be taken the processes of life are car- 
ried on by consuming the tissues ; and if food be taken 
and not digested the processes of life must be supported 
by the same consumption of tissues, with the further re- 
sult that the undigested food must be excreted from the 
body, which at a glance will be seen to be a strain upon 
the vital powers, calling for an additional consumption 
of tissue, and inevitably delaying the restoration of the 
patient. 

We are well aware that a doctrine which antagonizes 
not only the teachings and practice of all schools of 
medicine, but is counter to the universal custom of civ- 
ilized mankind, must be well grounded in truth to make 
headway against such odds. Encouragement is found 
in the fact that whereas a century ago every fever patient 
was bled, now no one is sacrificed to this great delusion ; 
and there is good ground for hope that in fifty years 
from now no one will be permitted to partake of food 
at the beginning of an attack of illness. 

Quite generally, in severe attacks, the patient has no 



DURATION OF FAST. 23 

appetite — food is positively repulsive ; but when there 
seems to be craving for food, it will be found to be a 
fictitious longing caused by inflammation, and not from 
need of nourishment. This fictitious appetite usually 
disappears with the first twenty-four hours' fast. The 
effort of the true physician must be to assist nature, and 
to be guided by her. If there should still be found 
longing for food at the expiration of forty-eight hours' 
fasting, it will be evidence that food is needed. The same 
intelligent force that builds a temporary bone ring to 
support a broken bone, and removes it when no longer 
needed, and that takes away the appetite upon the 
receipt of news of a calamity, knows precisely when to 
eat and when not to eat. The more serious the attack 
of illness, the longer duration of fast needed. From 
three to six days will be found to be the time usually 
indicated, but one, two and even three weeks' fasting 
will be found advisable in extreme cases. Let nature be 
absolutely trusted ; when the patient has been denied 
food long enough to overcome the inflammation which 
is liable to be mistaken for appetite, then give nourish- 
ment as soon as and no sooner than the patient craves 
food. 

1 . We have now the rationale of the first rule to be 
followed whenever anyone is taken ill : Partake of no 
food during forty-eight hours ; after that time continue an 
absolute fast from food until the patient has pronounced 
natural hunger. 

2 . As one of the most frequent causes of illness con- 
sists in the clogging of the system consequent upon 
overeating, and the use of unwholesome foods, it will be 
noticed that at such times nature is making extra efforts 
to eliminate this surfeit through the action of the excre- 
tory organs — the bowels, kidneys, and skin. The action 
of hot water taken at such times tends to wash out the 
stomach, encourage perspiration, provoke a movement 



24 COPIOUS DRAUGHTS OF HOT WATER. 

of the bowels, and stimulate the action of the kidneys, 
and we have in these well-known elementary principles 
of physiology the rationale of the second rule : Adminis- 
ter frequent and copious draughts of hot water, preferably 
soft or distilled. This is found very helpful whether the 
patient feels thirsty or not ; and after the second day, 
if the patient has a high temperature, and especially if 
he prefers it, cold water may be given in preference to 
hot. It will be noted that nothing is to be added to the 
water; water alone requires no digestion, and it not 
only stimulates excretion, but whatever portion of it 
may be needed in keeping up the volume of the blood is 
absorbed directly into the circulation, and consequently 
causes no strain upon the vital powers. 

3 . Disease has been defined to be a disturbance in the 
circulation ; certain it is that such disturbance usually 
attends upon disease. When one has fever or any acute 
attack of illness, there is congestion of blood in the 
brain and vital organs and withdrawal of blood from the 
extremities. The engorgement of any one part tends to 
further inflame it, and further increase the congestion ; 
the withdrawal of blood from the extremities tends 
toward a contraction of the vessels, which in its turn 
contributes toward a still further withdrawal of blood. 
If in such cases heat be applied to the feet — the mem- 
bers most apt to be cold— there is induced relaxation of 
the blood vessels, a freer circulation ensues, blood enters 
the feet and is withdrawn from the head, and we have 
the rationale of the third rule : Immerse the feet in hot 
water, or apply hot fomentations, or hot bricks, or bottles to 
them. 

4. Congestion ensues upon inflammation. Cold ap- 
plications to the head reduce temperature; this allays 
inflammation, and thereby equalizes circulation, encour- 
aging the flow of blood to the extremities that before 
was determined to the brain. Thus we have the rationale 



HOW HOT APPLICA TIONS O VERCOME PAIN. 25 

of the fourth, rule : Pour cold water upon the head (which 
may be held over a basin), or apply large cloths saturated 
with cold or ice water. These cloths need to be changed 
as often as they and the skin become heated. 

5 . Fifth rule : If the patie?it is suffering from pain in 
any portion of tJie body, make hot applications (best done by 
cloths wrung out of boiling water, or hot bottles, or hot 
bricks or irons) to the surface of the body nearest the seat of 
pain. Among all the appliances of the water-cure sys- 
tem, this practice is perhaps the most practicable and 
has accomplished the most good. It is easily understood, 
easily applied, and works magical benefits in a short 
time. A rubber bottle will withstand boiling water; it 
is elastic and pliable, and is easily adjusted to any part 
of the body ; holds heat during a considerable time, does 
not wet the clothing of the bed or of the patient, and 
taken all in all is a priceless boon to the invalid and to 
anyone in pain. Everywhere in England, and gener- 
ally on the continent may be obtained an earthenware 
jar or bottle, holding nearly a gallon of water, that is of 
the greatest service in the sick-room, and in some im- 
portant respects is superior to the rubber bottle. Both 
these helps ought to be kept in every house. In absence 
of the rubber bottle or the water jar, common beer or 
wine bottles may be used. If an inch depth of cool or 
tepid water be poured in first the remaining space in a 
glass bottle may be filled with boiling water, without 
breaking, care being taken not to let the boiling water 
strike the sides of the bottle. The hot water jar or bot- 
tle needs to be wrapped in dry cloths, both to prevent 
burning the patient and to retain heat in the bottle as 
long as possible. In the absence of bottles, large towels 
or cloths may be folded to the required size and shape and 
immersed in boiling water, then lifted with a fork into 
a dry cloth, rolled up, and by means of the outside cloth 
to aid in handling the attendant can wring the boiling 



26 HOT WATER SOOTHES BETTER THAN OPIUM. 

water sufficiently from the folded towel, and the hot 
towel may then be applied to the seat of pain. A dry 
cloth, preferably of flannel, should be interposed between 
the patient's flesh and the hot towel. These fomenta- 
tions, if often renewed, serve a good purpose, but are 
usually greatly inferior to the hot bottle. The applica- 
tion of heat as herein recommended has the great ad- 
vantage of soothing pain almost as soon as it can be 
accomplished by the administration of morphine or any 
sedative; of being effectual and lasting, whereas the 
drugs of the old school are not ; and also has the advan- 
tage of being absolutely harmless, whereas the adminis- 
tration of drugs to soothe pain is one of the greatest sins 
of the old school, working untold damage in innumerable 
cases. 

6. Whenever a patient has pain in the region of the 
stomach or bowels, it is of the utmost importance to ad- 
minister, in addition to the outward applications of heat, 
frequent and copious draughts of hot water. Pain arises 
from an obstruction to some of the normal activities of 
the body. The ingestion of large quantities of hot 
water not only tends to wash out the stomach and intes- 
tines, but stimulates to an increased activity all the vital 
organs. The tendency of the ingested heat is to excite 
perspiration — itself of the greatest importance. The 
presence of so much water calls for increased activity of 
the kidneys ; the water also helps forward a movement 
of the bowels. If the pain has arisen from the presence 
of undigested food, a perseverance in oft-repeated 
draughts of hot water will produce vomiting, and the 
contents of the stomach will be ejected, a matter of great 
importance in itself ; it is also of great moment that it be 
accomplished without taking injurious drugs. We have 
then the rationale of the sixth rule : Whenever a person 
is taken with a severe pain in the region of the stomach or 
bowels, let him take a half -pint of hot water every five or 



ONE CAUSE OF CONSTIPATION. 27 

eight minutes until there is relief. The water is best heated 
as hot as it can be drunk continuously. It is not so 
effective taken in sips ; that temperature is best that en- 
ables the patient to drink continuously, at the same time 
so hot that the last portion of a halfpint seems almost 
to burn. Many patients will insist that they cannot 
swallow the hot water, but they can if not heated to a 
higher degree of temperature than 132 Fahrenheit, and 
if the attendant will insist with sufficient force it will be 
accomplished. 

There remains a most important measure — an ade- 
quate movement of the bowels. A breakdown in health 
is caused more by errors in diet than all other causes 
put together. Errors in diet are of two general classes : 
(1) The use of food unsuited to the organism; and (2) 
the partaking of food in quantities greatly in excess of 
the needs of the system. Each of these errors leads to 
constipation. Self-preservation is the first law of animal 
life. If a food be taken into the stomach of such a 
nature that it is at once made soluble and assimilable, the 
nourishing elements of such food are speedily utilized ; 
and the waste and residue having been separated from 
the nourishing elements, and having no longer any 
excuse for remaining in the system, the necessary move- 
ments for their expulsion are at once set up and their 
elimination speedily accomplished. If, on the other 
hand, food be ingested which does not readily yield its 
nourishing elements — if an unnecessary and unnatural 
length of time be required to convert such food into a 
soluble and assimilable condition, it is easily seen why a 
protracted stay of such food in the intestines is demanded 
by the controlling force of the animal economy. Nutri- 
tion is the first requisite for physical life ; and if food be 
eaten which is not made assimilable in the stomach, and 
which can only be made to impart its nourishment by 
intestinal digestion, the organic instinct or intelligent 



28 LA W UNIVERSAL IN ITS ACTION. 

force which rules over the organism insists upon retaining 
such food within the system for a time sufficiently long- 
to allow the nourishing elements to be separated and 
utilized ; and hence, when such food is eaten there is a 
tendency on the part of the system to retain it. Every 
farmer is practically familiar with the working of this 
law in horses. A horse fed largely on grain becomes 
constipated, its excreta dry and hard, and there is evi- 
dent clogging of the system. This is because its food is 
composed chiefly of starch, which can only be digested 
in the intestines, after undergoing a preliminary and 
protracted digestion in the stomach. A horse in such a 
condition is greatly benefited, as every horseman knows, 
by some cathartic which will relieve the system of its 
clog. But the best way to treat the animal, as every 
horseman also well knows, is to turn it into a pasture 
field, and let it eat its natural food. What happens in 
such case? It no longer eats a food chiefly of starch, 
but one largely nitrogenous ; this food speedily gives up 
its nourishment while in the stomach, and when the 
waste and residue are passed on to the intestines, there 
is a tendency and movement — on the part of the con- 
trolling force of the organism — toward the expulsion of 
such residue, and free movements of the bowels always 
follow. 

Law is universal in its action ; physiologic researches 
have shown the physiology of digestion to be the same 
in man as in the animals below him. Feed man on 
those foods which, although requiring a protracted stay 
in the stomach, are chiefly digested in the intestines, 
and there is inevitably a tendency on the part of the 
system to a retention of such foods, and their expulsion 
is discouraged : constipation results in the man from the 
same cause as in the horse. Treat the man the same as 
the horse, that is, put him on those juicy fruits which 
are rich in food elements which are rendered soluble and 



RESULTS OF EATING TOO MUCH. 29 

assimilable in the stomach, without recourse to intestinal 
digestion, and the man's bowels are opened for the same 
causes operative in the case of the horse. Moreover, 
fruits chemically induce a rectal secretion, and conse- 
quently free bowel movements. Grass, the natural food 
of cattle, accomplishes the same result, undoubtedly by 
the same means. 

Let us turn to the consideration of the second great 
class of errors in diet, namely, the partaking of food 
greatly in excess of the needs of the organism. It is a 
mere matter of common sense to understand that if a 
person eats more food than the needs of his system re- 
quire, not only must the waste and residue from the 
digested food be expelled from the system, but there 
must also be added to such waste all the food taken in 
excess of the needs of the body. A vigorous vital force 
may for a time not only be able to expel the natural and 
legitimate residue remaining from food which has 
yielded up its nourishing elements, but in addition also 
expel the large quantities of food which may be taken in 
excess of the body's needs. This, of course, can only 
be accomplished by a waste of vital force, and a strain 
upon the nervous system. This strain weakens the vital 
powers ; and in due time the system is found to be in 
a state unable adequately to expel the waste and also the 
uncalled-for food, and becomes clogged. Then there is 
to contend with the daily waste, the food taken each 
day in excess of needs, and accumulations from preced- 
ing days only partially thrown out; thus the system 
becomes badly clogged, and a breakdown is inevitable. 

Many people suffering greatly from this clogged 
condition of the system still have a daily movement of 
the bowels ; and having a daily movement, such persons 
usually have no idea that they are suffering from a re- 
tention of fecal matter, and from fermenting foods. In 
many such cases the intestines, and especially the colon, 



30 DR. HALL'S CURE FOR CONSTIPATION. 

have adhering- to their inner surface considerable quanti- 
ties of old hardened faeces, while yet there is a movement 
through the center of the bowel. The truth of this as- 
sertion may easily be proven by a warm water enema. 
Let the patient lie on the back, preferably with the hips 
raised higher than the head, and inject two, or three, or 
if possible four quarts of warm water into the bowels. 
Let every effort be used to retain this water as long as 
possible ; when it passes it will usually carry with it such 
an amount of fecal matter with an especially offensive 
odor as will convince the most skeptical. 

When it is considered that most people partake of 
food greatly in excess of the needs of the system, and 
that cereal foods form the basis of the diet of civilized 
man, and that such foods are not digested in the main 
stomach, but made assimilable by intestinal digestion, 
the rationale of constipation, and of its almost universal 
occurrence, are easily understood. Bearing these facts 
and principles in mind, it will readily be seen that Dr. 
Abernethy's rule " to keep the bowels open" is second 
in importance to none. 

7. A Dr. Hall, in America, has attracted considerable 
attention and accomplished great good by teaching that 
almost every person needs an enema at least three times 
a week. Unquestionably this method is better than to 
allow the fecal matter to remain in the system, but the 
objection to it is the fact that the bowels soon get into a 
state where they refuse to move except with the aid of an 
enema. Nature's method is by the secretion of fluid in 
the rectum and intestines ; and where a person's diet con- 
sists chiefly of food-fruits, and where this habit is con- 
tinued long enough to counteract the influence of cereal 
food and excessive quantities, there is sure to be no con- 
stipation. We have found the use of cathartic herbs 
better than flushing the colon — as the frequent use of 
copious enemas has come to be called — for the reason 



VALUE OF HERB TEA CATHARTICS. 31 

that the herbs stimulate the secretion of fluids in the in- 
testines, and the movement is brought about in a far 
more natural way than by the injection of water. We 
have seen the greatest benefit come from the daily use 
of such herbs, continued for years; and, unlike testi- 
mony regarding the action of enemas, the long-con- 
tinued use of which tends to put the bowels in such con- 
dition that there will be no movement without more 
enemas, there are many persons in America who testify 
that they suffered from constipation for long periods, 
and after using these herbs for periods varying from six 
months to three years discontinued their use, and found 
that their constipation had been greatly lessened — in 
some cases entirely overcome — in the meantime. 

The seventh rule, when any person is attacked with 
illness, is scarcely of less importance than any which 
have been named before, and is: Administer to the 
patient an herb tea cathartic once in twenty-four hours until 
there has resulted a thorough movement of the bowels. If 
there is no such cathartic at hand, or if the patient be 
prejudiced against taking any medicine, administer an 
enema of three or four quarts of warm water to the patient 
lying in such position as will best aid in retaining the water 
for a considerable period. 

While the bowels and kidneys are most important 
channels, they are not the only highways through which 
the residuum of food and the impurities resulting from 
organic processes are eliminated from the system. The 
skin is a most important excretory organ ; and in a state 
of health its million pores are open, and great relief is 
afforded to the system by insensible perspiration. When 
the overworked kidneys break down, and so perform 
only a portion of their appointed functions, a still greater 
load is placed upon the skin ; and this organ, both from 
overloading the system with more food than its needs 
require, and from a partial failure of the kidneys, also in 



32 A PORTABLE HOT AIR BATH. 

due time is sure to break down, and the patient finds 
himself with a "cold" or a fever. It will readily be 
seen that under these circumstances no avenue is to be 
neglected ; every encouragement must be given to help 
nature rid the system of its clog. Drinking copiously 
of very hot water, the application of hot bottles to the 
feet and limbs, and keeping the patient covered by 
woolen blankets encourage perspiration ; at the same 
time more efficient means of inducing a free perspira- 
tion are often of great service. Both in America and 
England contrivances for giving a hot air bath in the 
bedroom of the patient are easily obtained. Every 
household whose inmates live on the usual diet of civil- 
ization, and who, in consequence, are quite sure to eat 
much more food than the needs of the system require, 
ought to be prepared with a portable hot air bath. This 
bath may be readily extemporized by placing a spirit 
lamp — in the absence of this a small petroleum lamp 
will answer — on the floor beneath a wooden chair; a 
piece of sheet iron or tin plate may be attached to the 
under surface of the chair seat, or interposed between 
the flame and the seat ; the patient is seated nude in the 
chair, and his or her feet immersed in water as hot as 
can well be borne ; a goodly supply of woolen blankets 
is placed to encompass the patient and the chair, com- 
ing quite to the floor, and gathered about the neck. 
The patient ought to drink a pint of hot water, and 
usually in five, ten, or twenty minutes will begin to 
perspire freely. These aids are specially valuable where 
the patient is suffering from any acute attack of pain. 
In the absence of facilities for a hot air bath, if there is 
a bath-tub and a good supply of hot water, the patient 
may be immersed in water as hot as can be borne. 
Drinking the same amount of hot water, the patient will 
perspire in about the same time. If there is no bath- 
room in the house, and no hot and cold water facilities, 



OFFICE OF PERSPIRATION. 33 

the patient may be placed in a common sitz bath, with 
his or her feet in a basin of hot water ; the patient, tub, and 
foot-basin to be wrapped in heavy woolen blankets. As 
the water cools remove it and add more hot water, a few 
gallons of which will suffice to effect substantially as 
good a perspiration as the more convenient bath-tub or 
lamp bath. If placed either in the hot air bath or in the 
hot water bath, or the sitz bath, the patient must have 
a plentiful supply of fresh air, and may require cold 
cloths applied to the head to prevent fainting. A full 
perspiration will result in from ten to thirty minutes, 
and should continue for thirty or sixty minutes, depend- 
ent upon the strength of the patient and the degree of 
relief experienced. After a period of free perspiration, 
the patient should be thoroughly bathed in tepid water, 
the skin rubbed with the palm of the hand until the 
impurities settled in the pores roll up on the surface, 
and the patient wiped clean and dry. In these details 
we have the necessary explanations for understanding 
the eighth rule : When any person is attacked with illness, 
induce a free perspiration, preferably with a hot air bath or 
an immersion of the body in hot water. Where none of 
these facilities are to be had, a persistence in copious 
drinking of hot water, the application of hot bottles to 
the feet, limbs and body of the patient, who should be 
placed in bed, with a plentiful supply of woolen blankets, 
will induce thorough perspiration. The result of the 
perspiration is not only to help to free the system of 
impurities, but the rapid evaporation of water from the 
surface reduces temperature, equalizes circulation, and 
thus makes for health. 

In addition to these eight, only a few general rules 
are indispensable: (i) The clothing of the patient and 
the bed should be woolen, for reasons which will be 
found in Part II. ; (2) a large room is to be preferred; 
(3) a southern exposure is very desirable ; and, (4) most 



34 FURTHER HYGIENIC RULES. 

important of these last-named considerations, the window 
should be kept wide open in all weather. Heat the 
room if the severity of winter demands it ; keep enough 
woolen blankets on the bed to keep the patient warm ; 
but keep the window open. 



CHAPTER V. 

DIAGNOSIS. 

Whatever may be found in this book condemnatory of 
modern medicine and therapeutics applies in no way to 
surgery. Surgery is a science, especially since the anti- 
septic discoveries of Lister, which has made wonder- 
fully rapid progress during the past two decades. 
Medicine is not a science ; it is empiricism founded on a 
network of blunders. 

That part of medicine which is called diagnosis — 
the att of detecting the condition and ailments of a 
patient by symptoms — is akin to surgery in that it is 
also a science ; and a science in which multitudes of able 
physicians have become very expert. 

But of what practical good is it to be able to deter- 
mine with some degree of accuracy the particular disease 
with which the patient is afflicted, if there is no ability 
to assist in the patient's recovery — if the interference of 
the physician in the great majority of cases is sure to 
retard nature's effort to restore? Again, of what great 
moment is it whether the attendant is or is not able to 
determine the exact condition of the patient, provided 
that course is adopted which, whatever be the ailment, 
is best calculated to restore the patient to health ? It is 
truly of great importance when a member of a household 
is taken ill that there be no needless alarm ; and, fortu- 
nately for all those who are desirous to be free from the 
thraldom of the doctor, there are a few simple tests 
which anyone of ordinary intelligence and without pre- 



36 NORMAL NUMBER OF HEART BEATS. 

vious preparation may apply, and determine with con- 
siderable certainty whether the patient is attacked with 
a slight or with a serious illness. 

It is an unfailing law, whenever any person is at- 
tacked with illness, that the circulation of the blood is 
disturbed. In apparent health, with the mind and body 
at rest, the normal number of pulsations of an adult is 
usually from 60 to 70 a minute, and will average about 
65. There is no hard and fast rule that will govern 
this; some persons for a long series of years will be 
found with a pulsation habitually below 50, and some- 
times as low as 40 per minute, and still appear to be in 
good health, and able to perform their ordinary amount 
of work. There are also persons whose pulsations are 
habitually 80 per minute and even more, who likewise 
seem to enjoy good health, and to be in good vigor. 
It would be well for any person intent upon obeying 
the ancient maxim "know thyself" to acquaint him 
or herself with his or her usual number of heart 
beats. This knowledge would prove valuable if taken 
ill, because the variation from the usual number could 
readily be determined. However, when no knowledge 
is possessed of the usual number of pulsations when in 
ordinary health of a person who has been taken ill, the 
rule as above given will be found usually correct. If the 
patient has "taken cold," there will be an increase in the 
number of pulsations in the ratio of the seriousness of 
the attack. If a fever is threatened and the patient be 
suffering from headache, cold feet, a chilly feeling and 
like symptoms, the pulsation is likely to be 90, 100, or 
even as high as 120, and still no serious attack need nec- 
essarily be feared. If the pulsations rise much above 
the last-named figure the condition of the patient is more 
serious, and the higher the number of pulsations the 
greater the seriousness. The number of pulsations of a 
child is, normally, considerably higher than those of an 



COUNTING THE PULSE. A BLOOD THERMOMETER. 37 

adult, and this may be taken into consideration while 
determining the condition of children when attacked by- 
illness. 

Very little practice will enable any person to count 
the heart's pulsations with accuracy. A timepiece with 
the second's pointer is requisite. The usual and best 
place to detect the heart's pulsations is at the artery in the 
wrist, about an inch or a little more from the base or root 
of the thumb, and about half an inch from the edge of 
the wrist. It is a matter that every person ought to be 
familiar with ; it will be found of considerable value in 
illness, and will frequently enable groundless fears to be 
dissipated. 

The normal temperature of the blood is 98.4 Fahren- 
heit. It is one of the wonderful provisions of nature 
that this temperature is quite uniformly maintained in 
health with all sorts and conditions of men, in all cli- 
mates and temperatures. A self -registering clinical ther- 
mometer may be purchased in England or America for a 
few shillings, by which anyone may soon learn to deter- 
mine the temperature of the blood. Those thermom- 
eters are recommended that have a small bulb, and that 
are made so sensitive that the full degree is registered 
in from one to two minutes at a time. The most con- 
venient and usual method of using this thermometer is 
to place the bulb underneath the tongue, close the lips 
tightly round the tube, see to it that the patient breathes 
through the nostrils, and note the time. When skillfully 
done, a more exact method perhaps is to place the bulb 
of the thermometer in the armpit, and let it be clasped 
firmly the necessary time. The most exact method is to 
insert it in the rectum of the patient ; but carefully held 
underneath the tongue is quite sufficient for ordinary 
purposes. Care should be taken to see that the mercury 
in the tube is shaken down below 98 before inserting it ; 
and that this precaution be taken before each use of the 



38 DEGREE OF HEAT SHOWING DANGER. 

thermometer. As soon as there is any acute attack of 
illness it will be found that the temperature is raised 
above normal. A single degree of added temperature 
indicates considerable inflammation. If the thermometer 
shows the temperature of the blood to be ioo it is more than 
a degree and a half above the normal, and is still more 
significant. The gravity of the attack rapidly increases 
with each additional degree of temperature, and when 
the register reaches a temperature of 103 a novice may 
know that there is considerable fever ; and while this de- 
gree of heat is found in conditions not at all dangerous, 
or even serious, it is still a grave symptom and one to be 
fully noted. Beyond this point each degree of heat in- 
creases the gravity of the situation in geometrical ratio, 
and when the temperature of 105 or 106 is reached, it 
can almost certainly be set down to be the result of a 
very serious attack. It is quite true that physicians have 
encountered still higher temperature in patients that did 
not seem or prove of much moment ; in one case a young 
girl showed a daily temperature of 112 for six months. 
In such instances, it is like the case of those exceptions 
where persons seemingly in normal health have a pulsa- 
tion as low as 40, and, like these, a temperature above 
105 that is not of grave import is rarely met with. 

If called to the assistance of a person taken ill, it is 
important not to forget to examine the temperature of 
the feet and limbs — especially the feet. If you inquire 
of the patient if the feet are warm, nine times out of ten, 
when the feet are cold, the patient will reply that they 
are warm. The attendant must not rely upon the testi- 
mony of the patient ; an examination of the feet is the 
only safe rule. If the attendant's hand is warm, and of 
a normal temperature, the condition of the patient's feet 
can be instantly determined. ^If the attendant's hands 
are cold they must be warmed before the examination is 
made. A convenient method of determining if the hand 



TEMPERATURE OF FEET AND HEAD. 39 

is warm is to place it on one's neck or body, underneath 
one's clothing, and if the hand does not feel cold to the 
body it is warm enough with which to examine the 
patient's feet. When the feet are found to be cold, this 
fact of itself shows a condition that it is very important 
to overcome. 

A not less important symptom to ascertain is the tem- 
perature of the head. Coincident with finding the pulsa- 
tion considerably increased, and the temperature of the 
patient decidedly above normal, one is very apt to find 
the surface of the head hot. 

The attendant must not forget to inquire into the 
condition of the bowels ; ascertain what the habit of the 
patient is, whether there has been constipation or other- 
wise, and when last there has been a free movement from 
the bowels. As with the cold feet and the hot head, a 
person taken with any considerable illness usually is 
constipated. 

It is also well to inquire if there has been urinary diffi- 
culty — retention, or too frequent disposition to urinate. 

These examinations are readily made, require very 
little training, and it will generally be found that, when 
the condition of the patient has been investigated by 
these simple tests, a layman of ordinary intelligence will 
have substantially as clear an idea of the condition of the 
patient — regarding the gravity of the attack — as a prac- 
ticed physician. 

It is well to make further inquiries as to what the 
patient has been eating — how often and how much ; also 
as to what drinks have been used, and in what quantities. 

As a rule, a diagnosis made by following these few 
simple directions will be found quite sufficient; at the 
same time, emphasis must be laid upon the importance 
of continuing these tests as the hours go by. When the 
feet are found to be cold, it is important that such means 
be taken as are necessary and adequate to warm them. 



40 VALUE OF DIAGNOSIS. 

Having- accomplished this result, the attendant is not to 
relax the vigil. Every hour or every few hours let the 
feet be examined, and whenever found cold or getting 
cold, let them at once be made warm. 

The value of a diagnosis made in accordance with 
above directions is that it not only enables any intelligent 
person to give the right treatment, but in many cases it 
will at once give confidence, prevent needless alarm, and 
thus create an atmosphere favorable to the convalescence 
of the patient. Nothing is more harmful than fear : it 
paralyzes to a considerable degree the vital forces, im- 
pedes the action of the various functions, and is often in 
itself a fruitful cause of illness. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CONVALESCENCE. 

It lias been explained in preceding chapters what 
course ought to be pursued in the event of any person 
being taken suddenly ill. A patient suffering from pains 
in the head or limbs or body, with an augmented pulse, 
with chilliness or a tendency to chill, needs, as before 
explained, hot applications until a thorough perspiration 
is induced. 

After a thorough perspiration, the temperature per- 
manently lowered, and there seems no return of chilliness 
and pain, the patient may be encouraged to sleep. A 
patient who has been suffering from considerable pain, 
and who through such simple means finds it removed, is 
very apt under favorable circumstances to fall asleep. 
This is an important remedial condition, and should be 
encouraged. Sleep is nature's best restorer, and a patient 
should be allowed — under such circumstances — to sleep 
all that he or she will. After the patient has had a rest- 
ful sleep, it becomes of considerable importance that the 
surface of the body be bathed. This can always be 
safely done, even in a room not warm, by keeping the 
patient thoroughly covered and exposing only one limb 
at a time, which should be rubbed and bathed and thor- 
oughly dried before exposing another. When the limbs 
have all been bathed, a portion of the trunk of the body 
can then be exposed and bathed, seeing to it that all 
other portions of the body are thoroughly covered. 



42 WHEN TO CONTINUE FASTING. 

After a free perspiration there are sure to be porous 
impurities embedded in the skin. The hand, wet in soft 
water, and rubbed firmly over the surface of the body, 
is the best possible means of removing such impurities. 
A soapy hand fails to remove them, probably because 
the hand is too much lubricated, and is slippery. A 
hand too wet also frequently fails. Having first wetted a 
portion of the body with warm water, soft if obtainable, 
the hand needs to be rubbed over it until it is partially 
dried, and when this is accomplished the porous impuri- 
ties come to the surface and are seen to roll up in layers. 
At all such times see to it that a hot bottle is kept to the 
feet. Too much stress cannot well be laid upon this 
point. The attendant at a sick bed needs constantly 
reminding of the importance of warm feet. As may be 
often repeated in this book, it will not do to trust to the 
opinion of the patient as to whether the feet are warm 
or not. The attendant can only be sure of this fact by 
first seeing to it that his or her hands are warm, and 
then examining the feet of the patient. 

If, when a patient has been taken ill, and in accord- 
ance with preceding instructions a thorough perspiration 
has been induced, there is an early return of pain and 
sometimes of fever, the time has not yet come for bath- 
ing, but further sweating of the patient must be resorted 
to. At such times all food must absolutely be with- 
held from the patient. This may be only for a day, or 
for many days ; no food is to be taken until symptoms of 
fever have entirely abated, and none then until the 
patient has a decided appetite and relish for it. The 
only measures to be insisted upon are that the patient 
shall drink often of hot water, shall be encouraged to 
sleep as much as possible, and await the curative action 
of nature. When there is no return of the pains and 
the febrile symptoms, a bath, in accordance with the 
directions given above, is the first step to be taken. 



WHEN TO EAT AND WHAT FOOD. 43 

After the bath the patient is to be encouraged, as 
before said, to sleep as much as possible, and to await 
nature's restoring process. That the room be well venti- 
lated is second in importance to no other condition ; a 
clean bed, a clean room, well-lighted with an uninter- 
rupted influx of fresh air; no cotton or linen clothing 
should be permitted on or about the bed, except perhaps 
a pillow-case. The patient ought to have the benefit 
of a woolen night-dress, and woolen sheets and blankets. 
When these instructions are followed the disagreeable 
odors of the ordinary sick-room will not appear. 

In due time the patient will have an appetite. A 
small amount of food that shall be very nourishing and 
easily digested is that most desired. Beef, mutton, and 
chicken, properly prepared, are probably at once the 
most nutritious and most easily digested of all foods. 
The lean of beef or mutton is much improved by being 
run through a meat chopper or mincer once or twice and 
reduced to a pulp, the skin, connective tissue, gristle, 
etc. , being removed. This may be made lightly into a 
cake and broiled. Let a frying-pan be made very hot, 
the cake of meat placed upon it without water or grease, 
and allowed to remain until the surface is seared over, 
when it is to be turned over and the opposite surface 
also seared. When this is done the pan may be set on 
a portion of the stove not so hot, covered, and allowed 
to remain until the red color of the meat changes to a 
drab. It may then be seasoned with fresh butter and a 
little salt, and it is ready to be eaten. It is still more 
readily digested when made in a puree. This is best 
done by putting a tablespoonful or two of water or bouil- 
lon in a saucepan over a brisk fire, adding the chopped 
meat, stirring it until the red colour has given place to a 
drab, and seasoning with a little salt and butter. One, 
two, three, or four ounces of this meat should be given 
to the patient at a meal, depending upon the returning 



44 FRUIT, MEAT, AND MILK. 

strength of the patient and the condition of his or her 
digestive organs. In no event is the patient to take food 
except when there is good appetite, and in no event to 
take any food after the appetite has been satisfied. But 
when there is a vigorous or sharp appetite two or three 
ounces will often be found to agree when four or six 
ounces would lie heavy upon the stomach, a result it is 
very desirable to avoid. 

If the patient is a fruit eater, fruit may be safely 
added to the meal of meat. But fruit eaters are not apt 
to be ill, and a patient who is not accustomed to eating 
fruit had best begin it during convalescence with some 
caution. Dates, stewed figs, stewed raisins, prunes, 
peaches, or stewed or baked apples may be taken, which- 
ever the patient relishes best, and whichever are found 
best to agree with him. No other food than the meat 
and fruit is needed or desirable. 

Those persons who have scruples against using the 
flesh of animals as food, or who do not relish flesh foods, 
must seek some substitute that is also nourishing and 
easily digested. With many persons milk is a most de- 
sirable food, and answers these requirements. It is safest 
taken after it has been scalded, and in the main is then 
more easily digested than uncooked. The invalid may 
at first take a quarter of a pint at a meal, increasing the 
amount until after considerable exercise is taken, when 
a pint may be used at each of the three meals per day. 
A pint of milk is as nutritious as, or even more than, 
six ounces of lean beef or mutton. Eggs are equally 
nutritious, and when poached and lightly seasoned are 
generally easily digested. An excellent way of cooking 
eggs is to pour a quart of boiling water on two eggs (if 
more eggs are used add a pint of boiling water for each 
additional egg), cover, and let stand for ten or twelve 
minutes; the yolk will then be found to have become 
solidified, while the white is like a jelly. This food is 



EGGS AND MILK FOR VEGETARIANS. 45 

still more wholesome if one-half to one ounce of fresh 
butter is added for each egg, and if the yolk and white 
are thoroughly mixed before eating. An omelette or 
scrambled eggs are more wholesome than boiled eggs, 
because when so prepared the white is thoroughly mixed 
with the yolk. It is the white of the egg that is most 
difficult to digest, and when divided by another substance 
this difficulty is lessened. A custard made with three 
eggs well beaten and a quart of fresh milk, sweetened to 
taste, slightly baked, is a wholesome variety. Carbo- 
naceous food is that best adapted for keeping up the heat 
of the body. This is partially accomplished by butter or 
oil or the fat of flesh, but not sufficiently. As will be 
explained in Part III. of this book, the grape sugar or 
glucose of sweet fruits has the power of keeping up 
the heat of the body similar to that possessed by starch 
of bread, cereals, and vegetables. These fruits are 
superior to bread and cereals, because the glucose is 
ready for assimilation as soon as eaten, whereas the starch 
of bread must undergo a protracted and difficult digestion 
in order to convert it into glucose — the starting point of 
fruit food. Another advantage, and one of equal import- 
ance, is that fruit has specific acids which are aperient, 
stimulate the activity of the liver and bowels, and purify 
and cool the blood. 

As regards the substitution of animal products for 
flesh meat, suggested in the preceding paragraph, it 
must be borne in mind that eggs and milk are more dif- 
ficult of digestion than beef and mutton ; and there are 
many vegetarians who have inflamed their stomachs and 
intestines by the use of coarse bread and grains con- 
taining bran (a fuller account of which will be found in 
Part II.), and prostrated their nervous systems by the use 
of starch foods, who are not able to succeed with the 
milk and eggs, but who make surprising progress on an 
exclusively meat diet. All such persons who are desirous 



46 WHY WATER IS THE ONLY WHOLESOME DRINK. 

of avoiding flesh as food, upon ethical grounds, are 
urged to consider that it is the first duty of all to be 
well ; and that it is a far greater sin to be ill than to eat 
meat. If they do not succeed with the fruit diet supple- 
mented with eggs and milk, they are urged to use beef 
and mutton with their fruit instead, and in the event 
that there is great weakness of the stomach, shown by 
flatulence and fermentation resulting from the use of 
fruit, they are urged to confine their diet for a time to 
chopped beef and water. 

It is ordinarily best to abstain from drinking during 
meals. Half an hour or an hour before meal- time a 
half-pint to a pint of very hot water is recommended — 
indeed, this is necessary to accomplish best results. Dis- 
tilled water which has not been aerated is preferred. 
When this is not procurable, filtered and boiled rain 
water is the best substitute. If this is not to be had, take 
pains to get water as pure and clean as possible. The 
purpose subserved by the hot water before meals is 
manifold. At the outset the heat is a stimulus, and in- 
duces increased activity on the part of all the vital organs. 
Water constitutes a large proportion of the bulk of the 
frame, and is absolutely necessary to our existence ; the 
hot water taken before meals keeps up the volume of the 
blood, and answers all the need of water in the system. 
Taken half an hour to an hour before meal-time, when 
the stomach is empty, water has a tendency to wash out 
the mucus or any impurities that may be left in the 
stomach and intestines. No other drink is needed ; no 
other ought to be permitted. The only value there is in 
tea, coffee, or wine is in the water which each of these 
drinks contain. The stimulus which such drinks give to 
the system is a delusion, a pitfall, and a snare. It is 
quite true that a person becoming accustomed to these 
stimulants feels weak without them, and feels strong 
after partaking of them. At the same time the nervous 



NO STIMULANTS. MUCH FRESH AIR. 47 

system of such persons is being continually depressed, 
and insomnia and nervous prostration are the goal toward 
which they are tending. On the other hand, the water 
drinker who either never contracted the habit of taking 
stimulants or who has wholly overcome it does not feel 
the need of a stimulant, and suffers no sense of depriva- 
tion by not using it. In tea- drinking England most 
ladies are at a loss to understand how it is that one gets 
on at all comfortably without using tea. These ladies 
do not reflect that they have no difficulty in abstaining 
from the use of cigars ; indeed, they do not consider it a 
deprivation to wholly abstain from tobacco ; at the same 
time their brothers and husbands would be just as bereft 
without their cigars as the ladies would without their tea. 
The cause is the same in both cases. One of the results 
of the use of a stimulus or a poison is to beget in the 
human system a yearning for a continued use of that 
poison. A person can become addicted to the poison 
habit by a continued use of tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, 
or opium. Whichever drug is used the result is much 
the same. The victim soon becomes accustomed to the 
goad, is exhilarated immediately after partaking of it, is 
correspondingly depressed by reaction, and is gradually 
undermining the vital powers in proportion to the quan- 
tity used. 

As will be found more fully explained elsewhere in 
this book, the open window is of priceless value to the 
convalescent. If there be a storm of rain or snow, out- 
side Venetian blinds, so adjusted as to permit the influx 
of air and to prevent that of rain or snow, are all that is 
necessary ; when the weather is favorable a wide-open 
window is desirable in every case. If the patient is deli- 
cate let him or her wear a heavy woolen night-dress, and 
a night-cap, if need be, of the same material, and enough 
woolen blankets to insure warmth and comfort ; but let 
the window be opened wide. 



48 EXERCISE AND SLEEP. 

Exercise is not to be neglected. It will be noticed 
that great stress is laid in the foregoing remarks upon 
the importance of inducing perspiration when anyone is 
taken ill ; and when one is able to induce perspiration 
by exercise it is more natural and more wholesome than 
the artificial sweatings induced by hot air, hot water, 
or hot applications. Exercise in the open air oxidizes 
the food, and increases the appetite and powers of as- 
similation. Moreover, the science of physiology and the 
study of the laws of life are yet in their infancy. The 
most learned physiologist and hygienist knows but an 
insignificant fraction of these laws ; and there are un- 
doubted advantages arising from exercise which in the 
present state of physiology and hygiene it is impossible 
to explain. 

Sleep must not be neglected. It is our opinion that 
an average of eight hours of sound sleep, even in vigor- 
ous health, is needed by the human frame. An invalid 
needs more — needs all he or she can get. Let the sleep- 
ing room be kept as quiet as possible. Avoid anything 
likely to disturb the patient while asleep. The patient 
can also prolong the period of sleep by effort — by 
remaining quiet with closed eyes, and by compelling the 
mind to dwell upon monotonous subjects. A constant 
mental repetition of verses, fables, or any composition 
that has been committed to the memory is an excellent 
practice, or even persistently counting up to ioo, and 
repeating until hundreds or even thousands have been 
gone over. Many persons can induce in this way a 
second or a third sleep. 

It would seem after all that how to doctor is a very 
simple matter. One naturally inquires, if these few 
simple rules are all that are needed to enable anyone of 
fair intelligence to successfully pilot an invalid through 
an attack of illness, how comes it that all the world is so 
mistaken in these matters? We are accustomed in this 



ORTHODOX TESTIMONY. 49 

age to lay great stress upon education, upon scientific 
attainment. Civilization is justly proud of its universi- 
ties, and one naturally inquires why not of its medical 
colleges as well ? There is a great quantity of testimony 
from the most learned, successful, and eminent members 
of the medical profession in corroboration of the correct- 
ness of the position assumed in preceding chapters that a 
well-chosen diet, good nursing, bathing, hygienic condi- 
tions and rest are all that is required ; that nature will 
do the healing; and that physicians are powerless to 
help, except in so far as they may be able to assist by 
providing nature with those hygienic conditions which 
she demands. The following quotation from the writ- 
ings of one of the most eminent physicians of his day is 
to the point ; and anyone who is inclined to be skeptical 
as to the correctness of the position assumed in this work 
is urged to read carefully and seriously to ponder the fol- 
lowing weighty words, from the preface to ' ' Ancient 
Faiths and Modern," published in 1876: 

' 'Some thirty years ago, after a period of laborious 
study, I became the House Surgeon of a large infirmary. 
In that institution I was enabled to see the practice of 
seven different doctors, and to compare the results which 
followed from their various plans of treatment. I soon 
found that the number of cures was nearly equal amongst 
them all, and became certain that recovery was little 
influenced by the medicine given. The conclusion 
drawn was that the physician could do harm, but that 
his power for good was limited. This induced me to 
investigate the laws of health and of disease, with an 
especial desire to discover some sure ground on which 
the healing art might safely stand. The inquiry was a 
long one, and to myself satisfactory. The conclusions 
to which I came were very simple — amounting almost 
to truisms; and I was surprised that it had required 
long and sustained labour to find out such very homely 
truths as those which I seemed to have unearthed. 

' ' Yet with this discovery came the assurance that, if 



50 DOCTORS GENERALLY POWERLESS. 

I could induce my medical brethren to adopt my views, 
they would deprive themselves of the means of living. 
Men, like horses or tigers, monkeys and codfish, can do 
without doctors. Here and there, it is true that the art 
and skill of the physician or surgeon can relieve pain, 
avert danger from accidents, and ward off death for a 
time ; but in the generality of cases doctors are power- 
less. It is the business of such men, however, to 
magnify their office to the utmost. They get their 
money ostensibly by curing the sick ; but it is clear that 
the shorter the illness the fewer will be the fees, and the 
more protracted the attendance the larger must be the 
honorarium.' There is, then, good reason why the 
medical profession should discourage too close an investi- 
gation into truth. 

' 1 But out of this fraternity there are many men 
desirous of understanding the principles of the healing 
art. Many of them have begun by noticing the style of 
the doctor's education. They find that he is taught in 
'halls,' 'colleges,' and 'schools,' for a certain period of 
time ; and then at about the age of two-and-twenty he is 
examined by some experienced men, and, if considered 
'competent,' he pays certain fees, and is then licensed to 
practice as physician. As all regular doctors go through 
this course, it is natural that all should think and act in 
a common way, and style their doctrines ' orthodox.' It 
is equally certain that to such opinion the majority 
adhere through life. But it has always happened that 
many men and women have aspired to the position of 
medical professors, without going through the usual 
career ; or, having done so, they have struck out a novel 
plan of practice, which they designate a new method of 
cure. These have always been opposed by the ' ortho- 
dox,' and the contest is carried on with varying success 
until the general public give their verdict on one side or 

the other." 

Thomas Inman, M.D. (London), 

Consulting Physician to the Royal Infirmary, 
Liverpool; Author of "Ancient Faiths and 
Modern;" and "Ancient Faiths embodied in 
Ancient Names," &c. 



CHAPTER VII. 

TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN. 

The foregoing remarks are intended to apply more 
particularly to adults. The treatment for children fol- 
lows the same general rule with some important modifi- 
cations. Infants from ten to thirty months and children 
from three to twelve years of age respond very quickly 
to hygienic treatment. A child taken ill, and especially 
one showing febrile symptoms, can easily be given a 
bath in water that is raised a little above blood heat. 
No thermometer is needed; the attendant has only to 
immerse his or her hand to determine when the water is 
hot enough and not too hot. A temperature from 103 to 
106 Fahrenheit is required. Place the child in the 
water and cover the bath-tub with woolen blankets. If 
a common wash-tub is used it may be placed on the 
floor, and the blankets gathered round the neck of the 
child. From time to time add more hot water, the 
attendant always keeping the hand in the water while 
making these additions, to make sure that the patient is 
not burned. Usually the child will break out in per- 
spiration in ten to twenty minutes ; hot water must be 
added from time to time until this result is achieved. 
After a thorough perspiration has been induced, and 
continued from ten to twenty minutes or even longer, 
the child may be wrapped in woolen blankets without 
wiping, laid in a bed where there are no cotton clothes, 
with hot bottles to its feet, and clothes wrung from cold 
water on its head. If there is any throat difficulty apply 
cloths either wrung out of cold water or with chopped ice 
or snow between the folds, to its throat. It is always 



52 TREATMENT FOR CROUP AND DIPHTHERIA. 

well to examine a child's throat with a view to ascertain- 
ing if there are symptoms of croup or diphtheria. A 
spoon handle laid upon the tongue will enable any 
mother or attendant to get a good look at the throat, to 
accomplish which it is important to place the child in a 
good light. A little practice will determine whether 
there is swelling, redness, or white canker. If there is 
any white canker it is well to use sulphur water. Dis- 
solve flour of sulphur in water to saturation — until the 
water will not dissolve more. If the child is old enough 
to gargle this preparation it is the best method of apply- 
ing it. If it is not old enough, some of the flour of 
sulphur can be place upon a quill and blown into the 
child's throat, and upon the mucus surfaces which are 
inflamed or involved. This is a most important prophy- 
lactic measure ; it is both preventive and curative. 

Milk should form the exclusive diet of infants until 
about one year old, and afterwards the principal diet for 
years. During the first year of infancy, it is of great 
importance that the child be nourished on its mother's 
milk ; or, at all events, on milk from a healthy woman. 
Cow's milk, as will be seen from the following table, 
differs very much from woman's milk. The table is 
taken from Konig's "Chemie der Mensch. Nohrungs 
— und Genussmittel, " and shows the constituent ele- 
ments in ioo parts of both cow's milk and woman's milk : 



COMPONENTS. 



Water, 
Sugar, 

Sbum e en, } Albuminoids, 

Fat, - - - 
Ash. - - - 



woman's 


cow's 


MILK. 


MILK. 


87.09 


87.41 


6.O4 


4.92 


O.63 


3.OI 


I- 31 


0.75 


3-90 


3 .66 


o-59 


0.70 



COWS MILK AND WOMAN'S CONTRASTED. 53 

From the above it will be seen that although woman's 
milk has a little more fat or cream than cow's milk, it 
has only a trifle over half as much cheese and albumen ; 
and it is also more than 20 per centum richer in sugar 
than cow's milk. A German authority, Dr. Schmidt- 
Mulheim, in a recent lecture claims that cow's milk has 
about threefold more salt or mineral matters than 
woman's milk. This great difference will not seem 
strange when it is considered that the calf completes the 
growth of its frame in four or five years, whereas the 
babe requires nearly twenty years. The nitrogenous 
elements support muscular activity; and when it is 
remembered that a calf takes active exercise from the 
first, and the babe is comparatively at rest for months, 
the reason is seen why cow's milk has nearly twice as 
much albuminoids as is found in woman's milk. 

One serious drawback to the use of cow's milk for 
babes is the fact that it coagulates in hard lumps, whereas 
woman's milk coagulates in fine-grained masses. It has 
been found that cow's milk mixed with an equal portion 
of water coagulates like woman's milk, and this guaran- 
tees an important gain. It will be seen that the mixture 
of equal parts of water and cow's milk has still about the 
same amount of albuminoids as is found in woman's 
milk. The cow's-milk-and-water mixture has less than 
half enough of cream for the requirements of nature; 
this difficulty is easily overcome by adding to each part 
of cow's milk to be fed to an infant as much cream as is 
contained in another pint of milk, and by care this cream 
may be obtained substantially fresh. 

The great lack is the small proportion of sugar found 
in the milk-and-water mixture. As produced by nature, 
woman's milk is twenty per cent, richer in milk sugar 
than cow's milk; and when the latter is diluted with 
equal parts of water it contains only five-twelfths of the 
needed sugar. If a reliable article of milk sugar could 



54 INFANTS' FOOD. 

be obtained, the required proportions could readily be 
added. We would then have an artificially prepared 
infant's food much, like woman's milk, and one which 
would be found very satisfactory. In the absence of 
such sugar — and the milk sugar of commerce is not safe 
— we recommend the addition of a small amount of some 
of the reliable infants' foods now found on sale through- 
out England and America — as Ridge's or Mellin's. To 
one pint of fresh cow's milk add as much cream as is 
contained in another pint of milk, together with one pint 
of water — preferably distilled or filtered and boiled rain 
water, and add one large heaping tablespoonful of 
Mellin's Food. 

Milk may be easily and cheaply sterilized. Put the 
milk in a clean bottle with a new cork, putting the cork 
in place loosely ; place the bottle in water, and heat the 
water until it boils, and keep it boiling for forty or fifty 
minutes ; then cork tightly and set in a cool place. This 
destroys the so-called microbes, and the milk so pre- 
pared will keep much longer than fresh milk not pre- 
pared. 

When the child is one to two years old, we recommend 
the gradual addition of fruit to the milk-and-water diet 
prepared as directed above. Dates, figs, stewed raisins, 
prunes, French prunes, peaches, and apples (which may 
be stewed or baked) are the fruits recommended. These 
may be given to a child with its milk, but in small quan- 
tities at first, gradually increasing until at three or four 
years of age and upwards its food will be largely consti- 
tuted of such fruits. 

Infants almost always are fed too frequently. A new- 
born infant should be fed every three hours, except that 
even then it is best to omit one or two feeding times 
during the night. A six months' babe will thrive very 
well if fed four times a day, four hours apart, the first 
time in the morning at six, and the last time just before 



IMPROPER FEEDING MAKES FRETFUL BABES. 55 

retiring for the night. A babe a year old does not 
require food more than five times a day ; one two years 
old four times a day ; and from four years, three times a 
day is quite sufficient. 

It is frequently, perhaps usually, said of this or that 
or the other babe that it is fretful or peevish. It is 
fretful because it is ill, and it is ill usually because of 
improper feeding. The same error that adult human 
beings make in regard to themselves is made in regard 
to the feeding of children — they are fed too often and 
too much. 

Cereal or grain and all starch foods — for reasons 
which will be pointed out in the Third Part — are un- 
wholesome for all human beings; but this diet is es- 
pecially unfavorable for children, and more especially 
for babes. The intestinal ferments which are required for 
the digestion of starch foods are not secreted until the babe 
is about a year old ; and these ferments are not as vigorous 
for some years as in adults. All starch foods depend 
upon these intestinal ferments for digestion, whereas 
dates, figs, prunes, etc., are equally as nourishing as 
bread and cereals, and are easily digested — the larger 
proportion of the nourishment from such fruits being 
ready for absorption and assimilation as soon as eaten. 



PART II 
HOW TO GET WELL AND KEEP WELL. 



CHAPTER I. 
PRINCIPLES OF NUTRITION. 

"Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things." 

— I. Cor. ix. 25. 

The standpoint from which this book is written can- 
not well be reiterated too often. It is that it is as 
natural to be well as it is to be born ; that the illness — 
the quite general lack of health — that is seen on every 
hand and in every household is the result of the trans- 
gression of natural law. It is affirmed that errors in diet 
constitute in themselves the cause of considerably more 
than half of all cases of illness. A discussion of what 
constitutes a correct dietary, and the arguments that may 
be advanced in support of such a dietary, will be found 
at length in Part III. of this work. In succeeding chap- 
ters rules will be laid down for the guidance of those who 
are disposed to try our method. These rules will be 
here stated somewhat dogmatically, so far as the subject 
of food is concerned, and without any attempt to support 
them by extended argument. 

It is presumed that those readers to whom this part 
is particularly addressed belong to one of two classes: 
either those patients who, having been attacked by ill- 
ness, have followed the simple rules contained in preced- 
ing chapters, and have found the pulsation and tempera- 
ture to approach the normal, and who have entered upon 
a state of convalescence ; or those who have not recently 
been attacked with acute illness, but who find themselves 
in a chronic state of ill-health — who feel that they are 



58 WHY A VOID STARCH FOODS. 

suffering from one or more difficulties that they would 
like to be rid of, and who would be glad to feel an in- 
creased power for work or enjoyment ; and who are also 
desirous of putting themselves in such condition that 
they are in no fear of taking cold or of being attacked by 
fever or by any of the forms of illness that are most 
common, and from which attacks most people do not feel 
exempt from danger. 

The adequate nourishment of the patient should be 
the aim of the physician. This can best be accomplished 
by a diet which yields the largest amount of nutrition 
for the least amount of digestive exertion. 

Bread, cereals, pulses, and vegetables are the bases 
of the food of civilization. Bread abounds in nitrog- 
enous, carbonaceous, and phosphatic elements — those 
which support respectively muscular action, the heat of 
the body, and the brain and nervous activity ; moreover, 
wholemeal bread contains these essential elements in 
about the proportions required for proper nourishment 
of the body. The great objection to this food is the 
difficulty encountered by the system in digesting and 
assimilating its food elements. Upon investigation it 
will be seen that those foods which are known to be of 
easy digestion are rendered soluble and assimilable in 
the first stomach ; all those foods which contain a pre- 
dominant portion of starch are chiefly digested in the in- 
testines! : ' All starch foods are n©t alike in being difficult of 
digestion ; rice, while having a larger proportion of starch 
than most cereals, is at the same time more easily digested. 
The first rule to be observed by the convalescent is to 
avoid all starch foods. This includes not only bread, 
but all cereals and pulses, all porridges and puddings 
and potatoes. Let the convalescent continue the moder- 
ate use of meat, fish, milk, eggs, or mild cheese, which- 
ever is found to agree best. Having discontinued the 
use of bread and cereals, it becomes necessary to find a 



FRUIT SUGAR BETTER THAN STARCH. 59 

substitute that will afford like elements of nutrition. 
The starch of the bread is used to keep up the heat of 
the body, and for the promotion of vital force. This 
is accomplished not as starch, but when it has been con- 
verted first into dextrine, and then into glucose or grape- 
sugar ; in this last-named condition it is readily absorbed 
into the circulation, and assimilated by the tissues. It 
will be found that the sweet fruits of the south — prefer- 
ably the fig, date, banana and raisin — abound in the same 
carbonaceous or heat-giving elements which predomi- 
nate in bread. These fruits, however, differ from bread 
in that the heat-giving portion is already glucose or 
grape-sugar perfectly prepared by nature, and when 
these fruits reach the stomach a large proportion of their 
nourishment is at once dissolved and passes directly into 
the circulation. The most important rule, then, for all 
is to discontinue starch foods and to substitute therefor 
such sweet fruits as those named above. If, however, it 
be found that after a time these fruits pall on the appe- 
tite, stewed raisins (or sultanas), prunes, peaches, apri- 
cots, or apples may be used with the sweet fruits, or in 
alternation with them. On such a diet the system will 
find its needed nitrogen in the animal foods, its heat- 
giving elements chiefly from the sweet fruits, and the 
necessary phosphates from both. 

Perhaps the greatest error that is made in diet — one 
which is most prolific in disease, in shortened life and 
minimized powers — is the almost universal habit of eat- 
ing too much. It will be found by any earnest student 
of the food question who will practically experiment that 
the starch foods conduce greatly to the habit of repletion. 
In America, where hot breads and griddle cakes are a 
common article of diet, such foods are apt to be eaten in 
twice, thrice, and even four times the needed quantity. 
Even in England, where very little hot bread is eaten, it 
will be found that there are many preparations of pud- 



60 STARCH FOODS INDUCE OVEREATING. 

dings, tarts, sweets, and pastries that tempt the appetite 
and tend to the use of excessive quantities. It is a 
curious fact, but one which can be easily verified, that a 
person accustomed to eating bread, puddings, macaroni, 
or like foods, finds these preparations with their usual 
adjuncts not only tasty and attractive to the appetite 
when they begin eating, but find them also quite as 
tasty and tempting long after they have eaten greatly in 
excess of their needs. In contrast to this, it will be 
found by those who have substituted fruits for starch 
foods — and who have exclusively followed this diet for a 
few weeks — that while at the commencement of a meal 
these fruits are very tasty and enticing, the relish re- 
cedes as the needs of the system are supplied. 

Another reason why starch food impels to repletion 
is because of our habit of eating the cereals and starch 
foods not only with much cooking, but with much 
seasoning as well. A moment's reflection will show any 
person that figs, dates, and bananas are prepared by 
nature ready for eating. If we have to resort to dried 
figs, we only add so much boiling water as is needed to 
restore them as nearly as may be to the condition they 
were in when plucked from the tree. Let it be repeated 
that the heat-forming elements of these foods are already 
prepared by nature for assimilation, and appeal fully to 
the sense of taste ; whereas the cereals and starch foods 
must first undergo protracted cooking, and are then not 
suitable to the palate, but must be seasoned with salt, 
butter, sugar, or similar additions, and must then await 
a protracted digestion before assimilation takes place. .. 

The rule to be observed in determining the amount 
of food needed by the system, and the point beyond 
which it is harmful to go, is to find the least amount of 
food taken at one meal that will leave the system com- 
fortably nourished up to the usual time of taking the 
next meal. Whenever this condition is not realized, 



SIMPLICITY IN DIET. 61 

either the person has not had food enough, or the right 
kind of food, or the digestive organs have not been able 
to digest and assimilate it. When, on the other hand, a 
person finds the food taken at the last meal keeps the 
body well-nourished until the time of the next meal, he 
may be sure that he has eaten enough. 

It is of great importance to health-seekers that they 
not only habitually use few kinds of food, but that they 
use these foods continually day after day, and month 
after month. Two conditions are gained by this prac- 
tice: the digestive organs, becoming used to a given 
article of food, more readily digest it than those foods 
to which the system is not accustomed, and it will also 
be found that by following a continuous diet, although 
when one is hungry the food is relished as well as any, 
as soon as the needs of the system are met there is much 
less appetite than when partaking of a variety of foods, 
even when a full supply has already been taken. 

It will be noted also that in those fruits which have 
been recommended in substitution for bread and cereals 
no seasoning and no additions are necessary. The food 
as it comes from the hand of nature is palatable and 
delicious, needing neither preparation nor seasoning. 
Quite opposed to this, the universal custom in civiliza- 
tion proves that to be palatable cereals and starch foods 
not only must be cooked, but must be liberally gar- 
nished with seasonings and sauces. 

Our organ of taste is a provision of nature to deter- 
mine suitable from unsuitable food. If we eat food free 
from seasonings and sauces, our sense of taste at once 
determines the suitableness of the food. There is no 
danger of anyone eating a stale egg, for instance, even 
if cooked, if entirely free from seasoning. At the same 
time, a stale egg may after cooking be united with 
savories and seasonings until the most fastidious person 
is beguiled into eating it. 



62 VALUE OF NUTRITION. 

As before remarked, cereals and starch foods are not 
used as foods until they have undergone protracted cook- 
ing. The fruits recommended above, when fresh, need 
no cooking whatever to make them as attractive to the 
taste as possible, and when dried they usually need only 
hot water and sufficient time to restore them to the con- 
dition of fresh fruit. 

In the matter of diet the most important end to be 
sought is to be well nourished. Adequate nutrition is 
the first requisite of physical well-being. Many search- 
ers after health, and especially those familiar with the 
writings of hygienists and physicians of the reform 
school, often commit great errors in this regard, and it 
is easy to understand why many have been mistaken in 
this matter, and have taken too little food. The chief 
fault in civilization in the matter of diet is eating too 
much. Many persons suffering from this repletion, 
and having their attention turned in the direction of 
medical reform, have been induced through the influ- 
ence of radical thought to try the opposite of repletion, 
namely, living upon too small an amount of food, and 
upon food not sufficiently nourishing. For a time, and 
especially if the person has a little extra flesh to go upon, 
this course seems to work well ; but in the end it is des- 
tined to be a failure that can only be equaled in bad 
results by overeating. There are several tests that will 
enable anyone to determine whether or not he or she is 
adequately nourished. While obesity is a diseased con- 
dition unfavorable to good health, and the foundation of 
many disorders, it is nevertheless necessary to have a 
normal amount of adipose tissue ; emaciation is an un- 
failing sign of inadequate nourishment, resulting either 
from insufficient food or from poor quality (almost al- 
ways lacking in quality) or from a failing on the part 
of the system to digest and assimilate the food. If there 
is a well-rounded figure, if the patient's weight bears the 



VARIETY NOT NECESSARY. 63 

relation to his or her height that is given in the table on 
page 160, it is good evidence that such person is well- 
nourished. But this is not enough. It is necessary, 
also, that the patient have a good appetite at meal- time, 
that he or she experience a sense of comfort and satis- 
faction at the conclusion of the meal, and that there is 
no sensation of hunger or faintness before the time of 
the succeeding meal. If, in addition, such a person 
experiences a buoyancy during the waking hours, no 
heaviness or dullness after meals, but a feeling of energy 
and a desire for work, there is additional sign of being 
adequately nourished. 

There is a widespread misapprehension as to the 
importance of variety in food. It is usually thought 
desirable and necessary that a variety be furnished, in 
order that the appetite may be stimulated and the needs 
of the body met. This misapprehension has arisen from 
the quite universal custom of eating the wrong kind of 
foods, and foods which are inadequate. It will be 
found by every earnest and persistent health-seeker — we 
have proved this over and over again in hundreds of 
patients — that where an adequate food is provided, if the 
patient partakes of only so much of this food as the 
appetite demands, and takes it at regular times, that he 
or she experiences at each meal as great relish for it, 
although it has been eaten meal after meal, day after 
day, and week after week, as is possible or desirable. 

In an extended medical practice, in a large number of 
cases we prescribed a continuous diet of brown bread and 
milk ; this was done at a time when we did not suspect 
that cereal foods were unwholesome. We were led to 
adopt this diet as a most important accessory to the conva- 
lescent and to the health-seeker from the fact that whole- 
meal bread when subjected to analysis is found to contain 
the elements needed for the complete nutrition of man, 
and to contain these elements in about the needed propor- 



64 RELISH FOR SIMPLE FOODS. 

tion ; and also from the fact that it was favored by able 
hygienists. Milk also has long been regarded by physi- 
cians and scientists as an ideal food, because it too has 
all the elements required for sustaining the organism ; 
and while milk has too large a proportion of nitrogen, 
and not enough of carbon, it is still a most excellent 
food. These foods taken together as one were found to 
bring about a very satisfactory improvement in health. 
A noticeable feature was the fact that the majority of 
persons confined exclusively to this diet learned to relish 
it more and more as the weeks and months passed by ; 
and many of these invalids assured us after using this diet 
for months that they never relished their food so well 
before. In many instances patients who had never liked 
milk, and who had thought they could not drink it, taught 
themselves to use it, and came to relish it as much as 
they did or could any food. It was a source of surprise 
to some of these patients who had long been invalids, 
and who had stimulated a waning appetite by high sea- 
sonings, rich foods, successive varieties, and great efforts 
to please the palate, that they had for this simple fare of 
bread and milk, with no other food, week after week, 
and month after month, a much greater relish than they 
before had had for highly seasoned and so-called tasty 
dishes. 

Since our attention has been called to the fact that 
the sweet fruits, which must originally have formed the 
principal item in man's food, are not only digested in the 
first stomach, but have a major portion of their nourish- 
ment already in condition to be absorbed and assimilated 
as soon as eaten ; and to the other most important fact 
that the larger share of the food elements in bread and 
cereals must pass through the usual process and time 
required for digestion in the first stomach, and then 
undergo a still further digestion and chemical change in 
the intestines before they become assimilable by the 



MILK WITH DATES AND FIGS. 65 

system — when these facts were observed, we advised such 
patients as we before put upon a diet of bread and milk 
to take instead a diet of milk with a moderate quantity 
of sweet fruits, preferably figs and dates, as these can.be 
obtained free from artificial sugar. This diet will not at 
first be found to please so great a proportion of health- 
seekers as the bread and milk, perhaps for the reason 
that most persons have been in the habit at one time 
or another of using both milk and bread, whereas a diet 
of milk and figs, or other sweet fruits, is one new to 
their experience, and it is often found that the patient 
can only relish such a diet gradually. 

It is quite impossible to make hard and fast rules as 
to weights or measurements for the amount of food 
adapted to different persons. The rule already pointed 
out must be borne in mind — to use only so much, but to 
be sure to use as much as is found necessary to keep the 
system free from hunger up to the usual time of the 
next meal. Our patients who followed our directions in 
the bread and milk diet required for three meals a day 
from a half-pint of milk in some cases to over a pint in 
others at each meal, and from two to six ounces of 
wholemeal bread. Those who have confined themselves 
to a diet of figs or other dried fruits and milk usually 
find that less than a pint of milk three times a day is 
quite sufficient, and from two to six ounces of dried fruit 
at each meal. The figs are often prepared by pouring 
boiling water upon them (preferably distilled or filtered 
rain or other soft, pure water) and allowing them to 
stand for some twenty-four hours ; or they may be put in 
the cold milk and allowed to remain over the fire until 
brought to a boil, then set aside, and they will be found 
fully softened in five or ten minutes. Many people 
relish cold milk with figs to whom figs and milk cooked 
together are very distasteful; in such cases it is very 
desirable that the figs be softened by proper soaking, 



66 RULE FOR QUANTITY OF FOOD. 

and then eaten with the milk as preferred. Some per- 
sons with robust digestions find no difficulty in eating 
the dried figs without soaking or preparation. This 
practice has the advantage of giving the teeth and 
muscles of the jaw needed and salutary exercise ; and if 
the mastication is thoroughly done, and a little milk 
taken in the mouth to moisten the figs, and held there 
until it is thoroughly warm and the figs thoroughly 
softened, it is a good enough way to eat this food. 
Dates are usually found in the shops quite soft enough 
without preliminary soaking; some supplies, however, 
are much improved by soaking in boiling water until 
soft. 

Those who are accustomed to the use of fish and flesh 
are advised to follow the same rule with regard to 
quantity that has been before stated — to eat a sufficient 
amount at each meal to keep the system well nourished 
and the appetite satisfied until the time for the succeed- 
ing meal, and to take the greatest care not to use any 
more than is necessary for this purpose. It will be 
found upon trial that the better way is to let the food of 
each day be a repetition of that which was used the day 
before. The point to impress upon the reader is that 
a variety is not desirable. With animal food the health- 
seeker is advised instead of bread to substitute figs, 
stewed prunes or plums, raisins, sultanas, peaches, 
apples, or similar fruits in moderate quantities. It will 
be found that these fruits not only afford the needed 
carbon with much less digestive strain than is required 
for the digestion of bread and cereals, but supply the 
organism with the fruit elements and phosphates that 
are absolute requisites to any complete system of nourish- 
ment. Fruits abound in elements whose office is to dis- 
solve out and carry off many salts and earthy matters that 
otherwise remain to obstruct, and induce ossification ; 
and these fruits are also nature's aperient, and promote 



MEAT AND FRUIT DIET. 67 

the normal action of the bowels and are the surest 
means of overcoming constipation. 

In illustration of the possibility of the system being 
well nourished on a uniform food repeated meal by 
meal, day after day, and even month after month, 
reference is made to what is known as the Salisbury 
treatment. Dr. Salisbury, an American physician of 
some note, has for over twenty-five years usually pre- 
scribed an exclusive diet of beef and hot water to his 
patients. On this diet wonderful cures have been 
accomplished, and one reason for referring to this here 
is to impress upon the reader the importance of being 
satisfied to try a diet that has as little variety as possible. 
It will be noted, however, by all those persons who 
follow or have followed the Salisbury diet, that there is an 
unsatisfied yearning of the system — a desire for sweets, 
confections, or fruits ; for something which is still lack- 
ing. With the diet herein recommended — flesh food 
with a liberal amount of fruit — there is no yearning for 
other food ; and persons adopting this diet will find them- 
selves not only quite perfectly nourished, but with no 
longing for anything else. 

There is a widespread misapprehension as to appe- 
tite, the relish for food, and the pleasures of the table. 
Go where you will, you will find those persons whose 
duty it is to cater for the table largely engrossed in the 
pursuit of a variety in food. This experience is so uni- 
versal that the reader who chances for the first time to 
see the recommendations as to diet put forth in this 
chapter is quite apt to think that such a course involves 
the greatest hardship ; and many people begin straight- 
way a discussion as to whether life with such restrictions 
is worth the living. It has been wisely said that we 
ought to eat to live rather than live to eat ; at the same 
time it is very fortunate that the course of diet which 
will be found best calculated to enable the health -seeker 



68 TOBACCO, ALCOHOL, AND A SIMPLE DIET. 

to live in best estate is also best calculated in the main 
to give the greatest gustatory pleasure. This assertion 
may at first seem dogmatic and paradoxical, but it is 
made with the utmost confidence, and it will be con- 
firmed by all persons who will give this system a year's 
trial. A man who has become accustomed to the use of J 
tobacco, and who is in the habit of smoking a large 
number of choice cigars daily, is of the opinion that the 
pleasures of life greatly depend upon the possession of 
the prized cigar. Indeed, to such persons, and while 
under the dominion of the habit, this is true. At the 
same time it will not be difficult, even for the inveter- 
ate smoker, to comprehend that those persons who have 
never acquired the habit of tobacco using do not miss a 
single pleasure that the cigar-smoker prizes so highly. 
Temperance workers have forced mankind to perceive 
and admit that if the habit of taking fine wines or appe- 
tising alcohol in any shape has never been formed, quite 
as much enjoyment comes from a drink of water when 
a person is thirsty as can possibly be obtained from the 
finest wines. The same law holds good concerning food. 
People who are in the habit of resorting to highly stimu- 
lating foods, and who have no appetite until it is worked 
up by a stimulant at the beginning of a meal, and by 
stimulating and highly seasoned foods during meals, 
are in a similar position with regard to a plain diet that 
the tobacco-user is toward discontinuing his cigar. All 
the same, the greatest slave to tobacco can, by per- 
sistently letting it alone, — generally a few months will 
suffice — regain so much of his normal estate that he no 
longer feels the need of tobacco ; and he has as compen- 
sation the knowledge that he is not destroying his throat 
and his nervous system by its use. It will be found to 
be the same problem in the matter of diet. It matters 
not how much a person may be enslaved to highly 
seasoned foods and confections, if such a person will 



THE BEST SAUCE IS HUNGER. 69 

resolutely abstain from eating anything whatever until 
the plain foods recommended herein are relished, the 
very satisfactory discovery will be made, when this 
course is persisted in for a few months, that those foods 
which are best calculated to restore and preserve health, 
on which men are able to do most work, enjoy life most 
fully, and which are most favourable to longevity, are the 
foods taken in moderation and in accordance with the 
needs of the system, and which give greatest gustatory 
pleasure. 

It is an old adage that hunger is the best sauce, but 
it is one which the profession of medicine has entirely 
ignored, and of which nearly all persons (except, per- 
haps, the very poor) are ignorant. Too great stress 
cannot be laid upon the importance of moderation in 
quantity. It is quite true that persons living principally 
upon the sweet fruits — a large share of the food ele- 
ments of which is glucose (not cane sugar) — will find the 
greatest relish at the beginning of a meal, and find 
also that when they have eaten as much food as the 
system requires the appetite soon fails, and there is no 
longer so much temptation to take more. This is no 
doubt a provision of nature always present when men 
are living naturally, and upon natural foods. All per- 
sons who rely upon flesh as one of the chief sources of 
nourishment will not find a like token to indicate when 
they have had a sufficient amount. This is distinctly an 
unnatural food and likely to stimulate appetite, and be 
relished long after the needed quantity has been taken. 
The only reliable method by which the health- seeker 
will be able to determine when he has had enough 
animal food is to form the habit when first sitting down 
to the table of apportioning to the plate or otherwise 
marking out a measured amount of such food, and 
resolutely restrict himself to this portion. Bearing in 
mind about what this quantity is, the person will be 



70 SAME FOOD FOR DIFFERENT SEASONS. 

able to determine whether it proves sufficient to keep 
him from being hungry up to the time of his next suc- 
ceeding meal ; it is desirable that just such an amount 
be taken. If when the time for the subsequent meal 
comes there is still no good appetite experienced, it 
may be taken as proven that too much food has been 
taken ; and consequently at the next meal a smaller 
amount should be apportioned. If, on the contrary, too 
small an amount of food has been measured out, at the 
next meal this may be increased, and in this way the 
necessary quantity to last from meal to meal can soon be 
determined. At first, and especially with persons who 
have been in the habit of eating too much, there will be 
a great desire, when the needed portion has all been 
taken, for more, and the best plan to be followed is, 
when one has taken the measured amount, or that 
amount which is known to be sufficient, to retire from 
the table and from temptation. It will be found that in 
five, ten, or twenty minutes all signs of hunger, or long- 
ing, or unrest will be gone ; this result is brought about 
by the commencement of digestion, and from this time 
on anyone who has wisely refrained from taking more 
than is needed will find great reward for his self-denial 
in freedom from heaviness, and in increased power for 
work and enjoyment. 

It is the opinion of many physicians that different 
kinds of foods are needed for different employments and 
for different seasons. With this view we strongly dis- 
agree. It is quite true that a person engaged in severe 
manual labour or physical exercise requires much more 
food than one engaged in sedentary employment ; it is 
also true that more food is required in winter than in 
summer, and especially more carbonaceous food is 
required in such season for keeping up the heat of the 
body. But it will be found upon experiment that the 
requisite modifications can all be provided for upon a 



SAME FOOD FOR ALL WORK. 71 

given diet. A puddler in a rolling mill, or any person 
engaged in severe manual labour will need a larger pro- 
portion of nitrogenous food and a smaller proportion of 
heat-giving — more flesh or milk or cheese, and less of 
the sweet fruits. A person engaged in sedentary 
employment and in brain labour needs a smaller amount 
of food than one engaged in severe exercises, but does 
not need particularly different proportions of food. In 
warm weather a distinctly larger proportion of the 
sweet fruits and a smaller proportion of flesh foods is 
required. In a question like this arguments are of but 
little avail; the test of experiment is required; and 
whoever will put this matter to the test will find that the 
same food which is adapted to severe physical toil is also 
equally well adapted to brain work — that the difference is 
chiefly in quantity ; and that the same diet is suitable for 
summer as for winter, if care is taken in summer to eat 
a greater proportion of fruits and a less proportion of 
oily food. 



CHAPTER II. 

TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. 

Intimately connected with the subject of food is the 
question what is best to drink. Those persons who are 
able to live on a fruit and nut diet do not need any 
drink ; if an abundance of fruit as prepared by nature is 
to be had, all the water needed by the system is con- 
tained in such fruit. If recourse be had to dried fruits, 
and if these fruits be restored to nearly their natural 
condition by the liberal addition of distilled water, there 
is still no need of drink. But persons who are unable 
to properly digest and assimilate nuts, and who are 
obliged to get a considerable portion of their sustenance 
from flesh or animal foods, will need to drink water. 
This is best done when the stomach is empty — half an 
hour or an hour before each meal. A half-pint or a pint 
of water taken at such times not only furnishes the 
system with needed fluids, but serves to wash out the 
stomach, to stimulate the action of the bowels, and to 
overcome constipation. It is of the greatest importance 
that this water be pure. Nearly all water obtained from 
springs, wells, and running streams contains more or less 
of organic impurities and mineral matter. "Where rain- 
water has been stored in cisterns from roofs that have 
been previously washed, and where the water has been 
well filtered, and is then boiled before using, it is as 
nearly as possible pure and wholesome. Perhaps the 
most reliable method of getting pure water is to distill 
it. A still capable of evaporating several gallons daily, 



THEINE, CAFFEINE, BROMINE, AND KOLINE. 73 

and which can be operated by the heat of an oil lamp, 
or a gas flame, can be obtained at small expense. In 
London, perfectly pure distilled water from Apothe- 
caries' Hall can be purchased in twelve-gallon bottles at 
3d per gallon. 

When sufficient water has been taken preceding a 
meal, no drink at the time of eating is required or desir- 
able. The quite universal habit of washing down the 
food with tea, coffee, beer, wine, and the like not only 
interferes with proper mastication, but induces or con- 
tributes to the habit of overeating. Moreover, any per- 
son who will discontinue the use of such drinks for a 
year or longer will be convinced not only that they are 
of no value, but that they work positive harm. 

The stimulating and exhilarating effects of tea and 
coffee, and in a less degree of cocoa or chocolate, are 
caused by a substance called theine in tea, caffeine in 
coffee, and bromine in cocoa or chocolate and the kola 
nut, so popular in Africa and along the shores of the 
Mediterranean. These have all a similar alkaloid base. 
Theine, caffeine, bromine, and koline are different names 
for one substance. The amount of this alkaloid con- 
tained in each of the articles is, according to Chambers' 
Encyclopedia, as follows : 

100 parts of tea contain 3 parts of theine. 

100 parts of coffee contain 1.75 parts of caffeine 

100 parts of kola nut contain 2.13 of koline. 

Chocolate or cocoa contains a smaller percentage of 
the stimulating and poisonous alkaloid ; but like all kin- 
dred drinks it would not long be used if it had none. 
It will be found by any earnest student who will make 
an exhaustive study of this subject that opium, alcohol, 
tobacco, tea, and coffee are intimately related in their 
effect upon the human system. A small dose of opium 
acts as an agreeable stimulant, followed by a desire to 
sleep ; a small portion of brandy has a precisely similar 



74 TEA AND COFFEE POISONOUS. 

effect. Tobacco is more distinctly a narcotic ; but when 
its use is indulged in moderately, it lends a pleasant 
stimulus to the brain and nervous system, followed by a 
desire to sleep. Tea and coffee are at first distinctly 
stimulating, inducing a pleasing condition of the brain 
and nervous system, and if the quantity be not excess- 
ive the stimulus is followed by a distinctly sedative and 
narcotic effect. 

In the matter of opium, the safety of the intelligent 
portion of the race is due to an almost universal and 
well-defined apprehension of the dangers of the opium 
habit. To the millions of victims of the opium habit in 
the East this practice no doubt seemed as harmless as 
the use of tobacco, tea, and coffee appears to those who 
indulge in these stimulants in modern life. But in 
Western civilization it is well known that the habit of 
opium-taking is equivalent to self-destruction, and in- 
variably leads to the most appalling misery, suffering, 
and death. Herein lies our safety. 

Fortunately, the effects of the excessive use of 
alcohol are such that few if any intelligent persons can 
remain oblivious to its dangers. Tea and coffee and 
tobacco do not inebriate, and do not speedily, as does 
alcohol, transform a human being into a wreck. A 
moderate use of alcoholic stimulants, such as is indulged 
in by Continental people in the daily use of natural wine 
with meals, does not necessarily lead to inebriety, and 
we find thousands of intelligent people contending for the 
great value of such moderate use of alcohol. So, too, 
the medical profession, and the lay world as well, are 
divided as to the effect of tobacco upon the human system, 
many contending that this narcotic is distinctly health- 
ful and valuable. The student who has become aware 
of the undeviating and necessarily injurious and destruc- 
tive effect of tobacco upon the human system, and who 
searches for an explanation of why it is that there can 



TEA AND TOBACCO RELATED POISONS. 75 

be such a difference of opinion regarding this matter, 
will find the solution in the fact that the destructive 
effect of tobacco, as also of the moderate use of alcohol 
in wine and light beer, is not immediately seen. Years 
are required to undermine and break down the nervous 
system ; and when the disaster has been reached there 
is not an immediate connection between the cause and 
the result, as there is in the case of the drunkard be- 
tween his condition and alcohol, and in the case of the 
opium-eater between his condition and opium. It will 
be a surprise to many to be made aware of the serious 
effects which these poisons in such common use have 
upon the system when taken in large doses. The fol- 
lowing quotation is taken from Taylor's ' ' Principles and 
Practice of Medical Jurisprudence," page 321 : 

"The effects which tobacco produces in large doses, 
when taken by persons unaccustomed to its use in the 
form of powder, infusion, or excessive smoking, are 
faintness, nausea, vomiting, giddiness, delirium, loss of 
power of the limbs, general relaxation of the muscular 
system, trembling, complete prostration of strength, 
coldness of the surface, with cold, clammy perspiration, 
convulsive movements, paralysis, and death. In some 
cases there is purging with violent pain in the abdomen ; 
in others, there is rather a sense of sinking or depres- 
sion in the region of the heart, creating a feeling of im- 
pending dissolution. With the above-mentioned symp- 
toms there is a dilatation of the pupils, dimness of the 
sight, a small, weak, and scarcely perceptible pulse, and 
difficulty of breathing." 

The writer of an article on tea in Chambers' Encylo- 
pedia, an enthusiastic admirer of what he names ' ' the 
exhilarating, satisfying, or narcotic action of tea," else- 
where in the same article says : 

* ' If double the above quantity of theine (or of the tea 
containing it) be taken, there is a general excitement of 
the circulation, the heart beating more strongly, and the 
pulse becoming more rapid : tremblings also come on, 



76 OPIUM AND COFFEE ALIKE, 

and there is a constant desire to relieve the bladder. At 
the same time the imagination is excited, the mind be- 
gins to wander, visions appear, and a peculiar kind of 
intoxication comes on ; the symptoms finally terminate, 
after a prolonged vigil, in a sleep arising from exhaus- 
tion." 

The italicism is ours ; we think it well to note the 
unintentional admission that insomnia is one of the pro- 
ducts of the tea habit. It is well known that tea-tasters 
become subject to headache and giddiness, and not in- 
frequently are subject to attacks of paralysis. 

It must be borne in mind that all these poisons — opium, 
alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee — can be taken in moder- 
ation for years with no necessarily convincing demonstra- 
tion to the victim that his or her nervous system is 
being undermined and destroyed. At the same time, 
persons who indulge in tea, coffee, and tobacco should 
remember that a moderate use of opium and alcohol may 
easily and frequently does appear as innocent as the 
ordinary use of tea, coffee, and tobacco. It ought also 
to be subject for earnest thought that while tea, coffee, 
and tobacco, as ordinarily indulged in, do not at once 
effect the destruction of the nervous system, neverthe- 
less, when taken in large doses the effect may be death, 
as shown by the above quotation concerning tobacco, or 
profound nervous prostration in the case of the large 
dose of tea. 

It is worthy of note, also, that all these substances 
have a disagreeable taste and effect upon the human 
system when indulged in for the first time. It may be 
tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol or opium, an adult human 
being who has never taken anything of the sort will be 
repelled and disgusted at the first effects. The writer 
on tobacco in Chambers' Encyclopedia says : 

' ' It is unnecessary to enter into particulars regarding 
the symptoms of slight tobacco poisoning, because they 



TOBACCO A DANGEROUS POISON. 77 

are all well known to the great majority of the male 
population. Fortunately, the effects produced by to- 
bacco are very transitory, as the poison finds a ready 
exit from the body. The system after being subjected 
for a few times to the poison of tobacco smoke becomes 
accustomed to its influence, the distressing symptoms no 
longer occur, and a condition of * tolerance ' is estab- 
lished." 

"Fortunately," with regard to the readiness with 
which the tobacco poison finds an exit from the body, 
is an expression that may well be challenged. It seems 
to us rather that it is fortunate that the evils of opium 
eating are so tremendous that he who runs may read ; 
and that the destructive effects of inebriety are so great 
that in all the world there cannot be found a single 
defender of the habit ; it is unfortunate, in our view, that 
the manifestly poisonous effects of tobacco when the 
habit is first commenced are so transitory, for the reason 
that the system is gradually undermined while the victim 
is not aware of the source of the difficulty. The same 
writer as quoted above, and to whom it seemed "for- 
tunate" that the tobacco poison finds a ready exit from 
the body, says : 

"It (tobacco) may, however, produce various func- 
tional disturbances; (a) on the stomach; (b) on the 
heart, producing debility and irregular action ; (c) on the 
organs of the senses, as dilatation of the pupil, con- 
fusion of vision, subjective sounds, etc. ; (d) on the 
brain, suspending the waste of that organ, and oppress- 
ing it if it be duly nourished, soothing it if it be 
exhausted; (e) on the nerves, leading to over-secretion 
of the glands which they control; (/) on the mucous 
membrane of the mouth, causing what has been described 
as the ' smokers' sore-throat, ' a disease consisting of an 
irritation of the mucous membrane at the back of the 
throat, redness there, dryness, a tendency to cough, 
and an enlarged, sore condition of the tonsils rendering 
every act of swallowing painful and difficult. It may 



78 FAMILIAR POISONS GROUPED. 

exist without detection for a long time, but if a damp, 
cold, foggy state of the weather comes on the throat 
becomes troublesome and painful, enlargement of the 
tonsils is detected, and the symptoms become much 
aggravated by any attempt to smoke. This condition 
is more readily induced by the use of cigars than of 
pipes. It is quite incurable as long as the patient con- 
tinues to smoke, but soon disappears when the use of 
tobacco is entirely suspended. In association with this 
condition of the throat the gums are usually abnormally 
pale and firm, (g) On the bronchial surface of the lungs, 
sustaining any irritation that may be present, and in- 
creasing the cough. ... If, as is usually allowed, 
tobacco (in minute doses) possesses, like arsenic, opium, 
tea, coffee, etc., the power of arresting the oxidation of 
the living tissues, and thus checking their disintegra- 
tion, it follows that the habit of smoking must be most 
deleterious to the young, causing in them impairment of 
growth, premature manhood, and physical degradation." 

The reader's attention is called to the singular fact 
that an authority who praises the use of tea and coffee, 
and who is wholly in doubt as to whether smoking is 
injurious to health, should group tobacco, tea, and coffee 
together with arsenic and opium. 

As before remarked, it is just in this apparent harm- 
lessness of the moderate use of tea, coffee, tobacco and 
alcohol that lies their greatest danger. The inveterate 
tobacco-user, in reading these quotations, the meaning 
of which is so plain, may resolutely shut his eyes to the 
inevitable conclusion that common sense must arrive at, 
namely, that a substance that insidiously induces the 
" smokers' sore throat," together with the other patho- 
logical conditions named, must necessarily be in its very 
nature injurious to the health of a human being ; and an 
inveterate tea- drinker who is unable to conceive of how 
he or she could find life worth the living without the 
daily indulgence in his or her favorite beverage, may also 
shut his or her eyes to the plain deductions concerning the 



ALL TO BE AVOIDED. 79 

matter of tea, that must of necessity be injurious in very 
small quantities when larger doses induce increased heart- 
beat, ' ' general excitement of the circulation, disposition 
of the mind to wander, excitement of the imagination, 
and a peculiar kind of intoxication ; the symptoms finally 
terminating, after a prolonged vigil, in a sleep arising 
from exhaustion." Arsenic or opium taken in moder- 
ately large doses cause death. When the habit of taking 
these poisons is adopted gradually, large quantities may 
be taken without giving any immediate sign of their 
injurious nature. An unbiased student who will reflect 
upon the many facts concerning these correlated poisons 
soon becomes convinced that they are alike to be avoided 
as highly dangerous, in that a moderate use of them does 
not at once give conclusive demonstration of their inju- 
rious nature, and that a prolonged indulgence in them 
finally ends in greatly damaging the nervous system. 



CHAPTER III. 
THE OPEN WINDOW. 

In the northern states of America, and in the 
greater portion of Great Britain, physicians are in the 
habit of prescribing- for their patients a journey to the 
south, and a sojourn during the winter months in a warm 
climate. While it is quite true that the mildness of the 
southern temperature is favourable to an invalid, the 
greatest advantage which patients obtain from this pre- 
scription is that which comes from breathing a purer 
atmosphere. In summer it is quite common to throw 
the windows of the house wide open. It is even not 
unusual, where the temperature is favourable, to keep 
the windows open during the night. By so doing vent- 
ilation is unrestrained ; the carbonic acid gas thrown off 
from the lungs is at once dissipated, and the occupants 
of such bed -rooms perpetually breathe fresh air. 

Even in severe winter weather, most physicians 
recommend their patients to take active exercise in the 
open air ; or, when not strong enough for exercise, it is 
recommended that they ride out well wrapped up, that 
they may obtain the benefit of the pure air. There is 
no reason why we should not have as pure air at night 
as in the day-time, and as pure air in our bed-rooms as 
may be obtained in the open air. There exists a very 
prevalent fear of night air, but we cannot breathe any 
other than night air during the night ; all that can be 
done is to close the windows, and make the interior air 
impure by the exhalations from the lungs. It is just 



ENGLAND AND AMERICA CONTRASTED. 81 

the same night air as that which is excluded by the 
closed windows ; but whilst the latter is uncontaminated 
and invigorating, the former is foul and debilitating ; and 
whoever will make the experiment will find the same 
advantage in getting pure air at night as is found in 
getting it in the day-time. It is of the greatest import- 
ance that the bed-room window be kept wide open in all 
weather. Sufficient woolen blankets should be kept 
upon the bed to keep its occupant warm, and in very 
severe weather a woolen head protection may be worn, 
but pure air should be insisted on at all times. 

In this matter the customs in England are far more 
favourable than those in America. In America, for 
purposes of economy, and because of the severity of the 
winters, the open fire-place has been well-nigh banished, 
and closed stoves are substituted. These heaters are 
placed within the room to be heated ; or, in the form of 
a hot-air furnace, in the basement or cellar, and the 
heat conducted through pipes to the various rooms. In 
England, on the contrary, the almost universal method 
of heating houses is by an open grate. Since the winters 
are much milder than in the northern states of America, 
the people here are well satisfied with these open 
grates, and their rooms in consequence are much 
better ventilated. They have the advantage, also, of 
not being overheated. But in both countries a little 
precaution will enable the health-seeker to have the 
fullest ventilation during the hours of sleep. All that is 
required is to have sufficient woolen bed-clothing, and to 
keep the window wide open. Since nearly one- third of 
our time is spent in bed, whoever keeps the window 
wide open during these eight hours has accomplished 
very much toward getting good air to breathe. 

The fact that woolen clothing is better adapted to 
preserve the heat of the body than any other is not by 
any means the only reason why such clothing is pre- 



82 DR. JAEGER'S WOOLEN CLOTHING. 

ferred to that made from vegetable fiber. As will be 
found more fully explained in Chapter , Dr. Jaeger 

has made a most valuable contribution to science and to 
hygiene in pointing out that woolen clothing is of such 
a nature as to permit the free passage from the body of 
noisome effluvia ; whereas cotton (and all kinds of cloth- 
ing made from vegetable fiber) is of such a nature that 
it not only impedes the escape of the bodily exhalations, 
but absorbs and confines them. 

It is for these reasons that the bed as well as the 
body should be clothed in woolen garments ; it is desir- 
able to have woolen sheets and blankets, and even the 
cotton or silk coverlet that is used on beds for pur- 
poses of ornamentation should be removed during sleep. 
The emanations from the body, not meeting with any 
obstructions in the way of cotton sheets or counterpane, 
have free vent, and a bed equipped in this manner is 
distinctly free from the unpleasant odors that are sure to 
be found in beds where people have slept for any con- 
siderable time in cotton clothing. 

These provisions are readily accomplished at one's 
home, but it is equally as necessary to have good venti- 
lation and woolen bed-clothing when traveling as when 
at home. This may be accomplished by providing a 
long, woolen night-dress, a woolen night-cap, if need be, 
and woolen stockings. Thus equipped, the cotton or 
linen sheets universally provided may be dispensed 
with ; and by insisting on an adequate supply of woolen 
blankets, the traveler can rest as securely abroad with 
the wide-open window as at home. 

Reference is made in this connection to the subject 
of woolen clothing for the reason that in cold weather 
no one will consent to have the bedroom window wide 
open unless ample provision has been made for keeping 
entirely comfortable. A person clad in a cotton night- 
dress, and having occasion to get out of bed during the 



THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA. 83 

night, cannot do so with comfort, or perhaps even safety, 
in a room where water will freeze, or even in a room 
much less cold ; whereas, clothed in a thick woolen night- 
dress and woolen stockings, no discomfort whatever will 
be found in walking about the room. 

Of course it is necessary to exclude rain and snow. 
This is best effected by outside Venetian blinds, which 
may be thrown entirely open in pleasant weather, but 
which can be closed and the shutters adjusted to keep 
out rain, while permitting a free ingress of air. 

As has been before remarked, the prejudice against 
night air on account of its supposed impurity is mani- 
festly ill-founded, since all the air to be obtained at that 
hour must be night air. It is true that in marshy dis- 
tricts malarial pcison, by the influence of the sun's rays, 
rises quite out of reach during the day, and settles to 
the earth again at nightfall ; and in such a region there 
may be some foundation for the idea that night air — that 
is to say, outdoor air — is unwholesome. But the best 
way to treat a malarial region is to avoid it, or to remove 
if an unfortunate location has been made. 

It will seem to many that literal obedience to the in- 
structions given in this chapter is unnecessary ; that the 
position taken is extreme ; that while it is very true that 
fresh air is desirable, no such importance can be attached 
to the wide-open window as is herein urged. All health- 
seekers who take such a view of this matter make a most 
lamentable mistake. The Black Hole of Calcutta is his- 
toric — the tragic story of how one hundred and forty-six 
men and women were confined in a room twenty feet 
square, all the fastenings tightly closed, and in the morn- 
ing but twenty- three survivors were found. We have 
several times in this book pointed out that the human 
system is always best when kept entirely free from every 
form of poison. It is quite true that the powers of the 
human system are such that deadly poisons like arsenic, 



84 INURED TO ABUSE. 

opium, or alcohol may be taken in small doses at first, 
and the system gradually inured to the deadly effects of 
these drugs, the dose being gradually increased until 
considerable quantities are indulged in, often apparently 
with impunity. Still, every well-informed physician is 
aware that the penalty for this disobedience must be 
paid sooner or later, and the victim of the arsenic, opium 
or alcohol habits sooner or later break down from the 
effects of these poisons. It is by similar powers of the 
human system that it is enabled to withstand the effects 
of serious transgression in other directions. And just 
as it is far better to use alcohol in moderate quantities 
than to become an excessive drinker, equally so is it 
better to sleep in the ordinary bedroom of civilization, 
where there is more or less ventilation secured through 
the imperfect workmanship of the window and its attach- 
ments, than to pack large numbers of people in small 
rooms, and oftentimes in inner rooms where there is 
next to no ventilation whatever. Consumption is known 
to be produced among the West India Islands and else- 
where by such crowding of many persons into small 
rooms with very little ventilization ; and just as it is 
better to let alcoholic drinks entirely alone rather than 
to become a moderate drinker, equally true is it that 
it is better to sleep in a room where the windows are 
kept wide open during all the hours of sleep than in 
the ordinary bedroom of civilization. It is very true 
that the evil effects are not necessarily seen in a month 
or a year; and when these results do finally show 
themselves in serious lung or bronchial difficulties 
its victims are no more likely to understand the cause 
than the moderate drinker, who gradually undermines 
his nervous system by indulgence in alcohol, under- 
stands when his health fails that it is the result of 
moderate drinking. To bring this matter home to the 
consciousness of the reader, it is enough to say that in 



AMOUNT OF VENTILATION NEEDED. 85 

all probability that fell destroyer consumption would not 
only be robbed of its terrors, but unknown in civilization 
if the advice given in this chapter were thoroughly acted 
upon in all details by all persons. Moreover, since 
many with every symptom of being in the primary stage 
of consumption overcome that malady by a journey to 
and sojourn in a warm clime, it is believed that such 
persons could just as surely retrieve their health by at 
once paying heed to these directions for a wide-open 
window in the bedroom. It would be fortunate for 
those about to try this prescription if the time of year 
were at the beginning of summer rather than of winter. 
In England, most bedrooms are fitted with an open fire- 
place. If the flue is kept open the year round, it becomes 
a valuable adjunct in ventilation, and a bedroom pro- 
vided with an open grate fireplace will be as well venti- 
lated with one open window as, without such a flue, it 
could be with two or more. In any event, in an ordin- 
ary-sized room occupied by one or two people an aper- 
ture of not less than four square feet is recommended ; 
and if there be no ventilating flue in the room, not less 
than six square feet. This is adequate for winter 
weather. In summer, double this amount is needed. 

An invalid when threatened with consumption will 
do well, if possible, to get a bedroom with an open fire- 
place ; then, with one wide-open window, acting in con- 
junction with the open flue, there is guaranteed a pure 
atmosphere. As before remarked, if one makes a begin- 
ning in summer, all the substantial advantages of a 
change to a warm climate will have been attained, and 
before the approach of winter the invalid is likely to be 
so much improved, and so much accustomed to the free 
circulation of air in the bedroom, that no inconvenience 
will be felt upon keeping it wide open the winter 
through, providing the instructions with regard to the 
clothing of the person and the bed have been carried out. 



CHAPTER IV. 
SLEEP AND HYGIENIC AIDS. 

Young's line, ''Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," 
like every true poet's sayings, was divinely inspired. 
Like the matter of nutrition, like the question of air to 
breathe, good health is intimately dependent upon 
sound sleep. Physicians and hygienists differ consider- 
ably as to the number of hours which are best devoted 
to sleep. Undoubtedly in robust health and adult life 
seven to eight hours are quite sufficient. Children and 
invalids require more. Since nearly all are more or less 
invalid, the safest rule is to encourage sleep as much as 
possible. Dr. Trail, the well-known American hygien- 
ist, recommended that all persons be encouraged to sleep 
as much as possible at one time. This is no doubt more 
natural than having two periods in the twenty- four hours 
devoted to sleep ; at the same time, there are many per- 
sons in delicate health who are much benefited by a half - 
hour or an hour's sleep in the afternoon, and such per- 
sons often find that six and a half hours at night and an 
hour's sleep in the afternoon is more refreshing and 
satisfactory than eight hours' sleep taken at one time. 
It will be found that sleep is far more refreshing when 
taken with the window wide open than with the usual 
closed bedroom. 

One of the chief advantages accruing to an invalid in 
seeking a southern climate is the insurance of breathing 
the outdoor air. Fortunately most persons, when the 



ADVANTAGES OF WARM CLIMATES. 87 

warm weather comes, prefer to have windows and doors 
open, and in this way perfect ventilation is secured. 
Florida and Italy and like climates are blest with warm 
weather even in winter time, and hence invalids sojourn- 
ing in such climes are apt to enjoy the advantage of 
breathing pure air. However, even under such condi- 
tions many persons, from long habit, and from fear of 
the night air, although enjoying outdoor atmosphere 
during the daytime, religiously close their windows at 
night. In this way, although they enjoy twelve to six- 
teen hours of pure air during the day they are debarred 
from fresh air fully one- third of the time. If, instead 
of going south, these same invalids are persuaded to 
have a wide-open window at night, with such provision 
against cold as is recommended in preceding chapter, 
they will have full eight hours of quite as good air as 
they can get in the south. In some regards it is better. 
Such invalids have but to take the precaution of breath- 
ing through the nostrils to overcome all danger of the 
low temperature doing them any harm, whereas the 
bracing atmostphere of the north is to many persons far 
more tonic and more favourable to restoration than the 
comparatively relaxing and enervating atmosphere of 
the south. 

When there is fever, an application of cold water is 
found to be one of the most effective and valuable 
methods for the reduction of temperature. Invalids 
with inflamed throats and chests who are provided with 
and follow such instructions or advice as will ensure 
breathing through the nostrils, and who enjoy the free 
air of heaven through the wide-open window, will many 
times find in the cool air of the north a distinctly calm- 
ing, cooling, and bracing effect that they would not gain 
by breathing the more enervating atmosphere of the 
south. 

If in addition to eight hours of pure air at night such 



88 UNDUE STRAIN INJURIOUS. 

persons are able, being well wrapped up, to take a two 
or three hour ride in the open air, they have just so 
many hours added to the eight obtained at night ; and 
if in addition to the outdoor ride such persons will sit 
some hours during the day with hot water to their feet, 
and with what would seem a superabundance of clothing 
wrapped about them, and allow the window to be open 
for a few additional hours — from these combined sources 
of pure air as many hours of outdoor air may be obtained 
during the winters of our northern climate as are usually 
realized by the invalid who has been sent to a southern 
climate on account of delicate health. 

It should not be presumed from the foregoing re- 
marks that it is advisable to pursue an heroic treatment. 
Nothing could be further from our wish. We are dis- 
tinctly and emphatically believers in natural methods ; 
we believe that it is natural to be comfortable ; and who- 
ever is uncomfortable from exposure to cold or too great 
heat, or too much labor, or any other strain is unduly 
calling upon the reserve of vital force. While it is most 
requisite that all persons, and especially invalids, should 
have the purest of pure air to breathe, it is only second 
in importance that they should also have distinctly com- 
fortable conditions in life ; all unnecessary strains are 
to be avoided. 

Even those who are in the greatest fear of a draught, 
and who have become accustomed to living in close and 
un ventilated apartments, are still able to feel the differ- 
ence between a distinctly fetid atmosphere and a room 
that is reasonably free from impurities. Any of our 
readers who have been in the life-long habit of sleeping 
in close bedrooms — and who have supposed that this 
course is a necessary safeguard — and who are content in 
the impure atmosphere of a church, a theatre, or a living 
room badly ventilated, are still able to perceive that an 
escape from a distinctly fetid atmosphere is a great gain 



NATURE THE TRUE GUIDE. 89 

in comfort. Everything is relative. If such persons 
reading the remarks on the open window in a preceding 
chapter can be prevailed upon to make experiment, they 
will require but a few weeks, and perhaps but a few 
days to become convinced that the fresh night air which 
they were before unaccustomed to, and to which this new 
habit introduces them, is distinctly grateful and con- 
ducive to their comfort and sleep. 

A person suffering from any abuse or from an attack 
of illness usually sleeps much more than when in good 
health. A man after indulging in a carousel, and poison- 
ing his system with intoxicants and excess, frequently 
sleeps from ten to twelve hours at a stretch. Those 
attacked with fever are not infrequently seen to sleep 
much more than half their time. This is because sleep 
is the necessary condition of the system to restore 
its lost powers and regain its accustomed vigour. In- 
valids, or persons who do not acknowledge themselves 
to be invalids, but who are seen not to possess full 
vigour, will often sleep, if permitted, nine, ten and even 
twelve hours uninterruptedly every day. Many physi- 
cians mistake in this matter a result for a cause ; and 
think that these individuals are damaging themselves 
by sleeping too much. The real cause of the debility of 
such persons, when the cause has been discovered and 
removed, is generally found of such character that sleep 
will be admitted to be one of the best methods to induce 
restoration. It is quite true that many persons in early 
and vigorous adult life habitually sleep but four, five, or 
six hours; these persons continuously perform unduly 
severe labour through an extended number of hours daily, 
and yet give no indication that such habit is injurious. 

It is one of the objects of this book to impress upon 
the reader that indications of nature are the true guide 
in a search for health; and although individuals of 
exceptionalvigourmayand do for a series of years live 



go BEST CONDITIONS FOR SLEEP. 

on much less sleep than nature requires, and perform 
more labor than is natural or wholesome, the end is not 
difficult to foretell. A breakdown sooner or later is sure 
to follow. And on the other hand, when anyone from 
any cause whatsoever is inclined without the use of 
narcotics or drugs of any kind to sleep nine, ten, or 
even more hours per day, it will be found distinctly 
favorable to encourage all the sleep that nature requires. 

With a view to getting the most favourable results, it 
is necessary not only to cultivate sleep but to cultivate 
also the best conditions for it. An overloaded stomach 
is not only a great strain upon the digestive and nervous 
system — an incubus and dead weight that interferes 
with useful effort and enjoyment, but it interferes also 
with healthful and refreshing sleep. It is not only 
desirable to have an open window and a well-ventilated 
room, but to have the stomach empty of food, and the 
vital organs as far as possible in a condition of rest. 

At the same time, it is quite necessary that the sys- 
tem be well nourished, not only to sustain the active 
duties of the day, but also to properly prepare for 
refreshing sleep. While it is desirable that all persons 
should eat at regular hours, and also that the last meal 
of the day should be three or four hours before retiring, 
it is better for a person who has been insufficiently 
nourished to eat a light meal just before going to bed, 
than to undergo the strain of inadequate nutrition. 

An unnecessary strain, an undue waste of the vital 
powers, must be guarded against at all times. It is for 
this reason that it is distinctly favourable to the convales- 
cent to have all the sleep that nature requires ; to be 
called before the sleep is completed is a shock and a 
strain upon the nervous system. 



CHAPTER V. 

BREATHING. 

Man's nasal passages are provided with delicate fiber- 
like linings, the functions of which are to warm and 
purify the air before it enters the lungs. This is a 
matter of far greater importance than is generally sup- 
posed. The air passing through the nasal passages and 
through this lining is not only warmed and tempered 
before it enters the lungs, but its impurities are elimi- 
nated. This is a wonderful provision of nature ; noxious 
gases and malarial poisons that are well-nigh deadly if 
breathed through the mouth are ofttimes rendered com- 
paratively harmless if the breathing is confined to the 
nasal passages. George Catlin, author of " Notes of 
Travels among the North American Indians," has writ- 
ten a book entitled "Shut your Mouth, and Save your 
Life " which is a most valuable contribution to hygiene, 
and a work well worth careful perusal by all earnest 
students of health. Mr. Catlin had been impressed 
with the great decrease in the average term of human 
life, and with the ailments and diseases universally suf- 
fered by civilized races ; and having been led to com- 
pare these conditions with the comparative immunity 
from disease and the fuller term of life enjoyed among 
primitive races, and still more observable in the lower 
animals, he determined on a full and exhaustive investi- 
gation of the real causes of this difference hf a series of 
extended visits and observations among the most remote 
and unsophisticated of the native races throughout the 



92 INDIAN CHILDREN RARELY DIE. 

American continent. Thirty years were devoted to this 
object, during which time he visited some 150 tribes, 
comprising more than two million persons ; and making 
careful inquiries, taking notes and drawings, he was 
able to furnish the unique collection of statistics upon 
which he bases the conclusion he was led to adopt. He 
maintains that one of the main causes of the universal 
decadence in the human physique, as the race emerges 
from the primitive state to that of an advanced civiliza- 
tion, is the gradually acquired habit of breathing through 
the mouth instead of using the nostrils for this purpose. 

While the majority among European children is 
notably high (something like an average of 50 per cent, 
dying before the age of five years), such deaths among 
the aboriginal races visited by Mr. Catlin are recorded 
as being extremely infrequent. In one case, that of a 
Brazilian tribe, the only infantile deaths over a period of 
ten years, so far as the chief's recollection could go, were 
well under a dozen, and these due to external accident or 
violence In some of the North American Indian tribes, 
where the custom was to carefully preserve the skulls 
of their dead in large circles on the ground, a close 
examination by Mr. Catlin revealed, according to his 
report, an ' ' incredibly small proportion of crania of 
children." 

This traveler further avers that among the two mil- 
lion primitive people he visited he could hear of but 
three or four idiots or lunatic subjects, and of as many 
deaf and dumb; and though specially inquiring, he 
never saw or heard of a hunchback. These remarks, it 
may be stated, do not apply to any tribes in which the 
white man's influence had begun to work, and where a 
rapid demoralization succeeds the introduction of drink 
and other pernicious customs by the so-called superior 
race. He took pains to study these tribes in their pris- 
tine condition, and uniformly found prevailing among 



OFFICE OF THE NOSTRILS. 93 

them the true and natural method of breathing — with 
mouth closed — both while awake and asleep. 

Quiet and restful repose at night is indispensable 
after a fatiguing day, but it is unreasonable to expect 
this when nature's purposes are perverted, and the 
object for which the nostrils are bestowed totally ignored. 

It cannot be too clearly understood that the atmos- 
phere is not pure enough for man's breathing until it 
has undergone the filtering and tempering process of 
the nasal passages. What the mouth and palate are to 
the stomach, such is the nose to the lungs, and the air 
which enters the nostrils differs from that which fills 
the lungs after having passed through the nasal ducts 
much as pond or cistern water differs from distilled. 
Yet people who in eating will carefully avoid swallow- 
ing fish-bones, fruit-stones, and nut-shells, will allow 
their lungs for hours together to inhale the common air 
about them through the mouth, full as such air may be of 
impurities, disease germs, and mephitic gases; and 
although the construction of the nostrils is expressly 
adapted to arrest and purify or reject such impurities 
and germs. More particularly in our large, dusty, and 
confined cities is the habit of mouth -breathing fraught 
with danger to health, and especially so to those who 
labour for long hours daily in factories or work-shops, 
where the air is often never allowed to become even 
approximately clear of floating atoms. 

The high mortality among working cutlers was many 
years ago the subject of carefully inquiry, and it was 
then established on reliable evidence that the cause was 
in most cases disease set up in the bronchial region 
by the accumulation of fine iron or steel dust, which, 
penetrating the lungs, gave rise in time to a state of 
chronic inflammation. Special respirators being recom- 
mended as the outcome of the inquiry, it is clear that 
the primal cause of the mischief — mouth-breathing — 



94 INFECTION BY THE MOUTH. 

was fully recognized in this case. There are, however, 
a large number of common ailments due to a similar 
origin which are never traced back by the medical pro- 
fession to their real cause. 

While traveling in New Orleans during an epidemic 
of cholera, after close observation Mr. Catlin was led to 
the conviction that its rapid spread was greatly owing to 
the facility with which the spores of infection found a 
lodgment in the human system through the mouth ; and 
it is urged by this and other authorities that consump- 
tion is frequently brought about by the neglect to use 
the natural filter and protector of the lungs. Consider- 
ing the fact that microscopic examination of the lungs, 
especially in those who have lived in smoky towns, often 
shows them coated and even impregnated with soot, 
and organic and mineral particles of all kinds, it is 
surely matter for wonder that organs so abused continue 
so long to perform their functions. Bronchitis, quinsy, 
croup, asthma, and many nervous diseases are probably 
in many cases attributable to the irritation and derange- 
ment caused to a highly sensitive organ by the breath- 
ing vice which we so earnestly deprecate. 

An examination of the perfect mechanism of the 
nasal function for the regulation and preparation of the 
supply of air needed to sustain life will convince any in- 
telligent man that so complicated and well-adapted a 
contrivance would not have been provided unless in- 
tended to fulfill an urgent necessity ; and the latest dis- 
coveries in microscopic science fully confirm and sustain 
such conviction. 

This power of the nasal organization to modify 
and select the needful quantity of air is shown by our 
ability to breathe for a limited time through the nose 
even in the poisonous air at the bottom of a well, where- 
as if the mouth be used the lungs are immediately 
closed and asphyxiation results. 



THE IMMUNITY OF INDIANS. 95 

With all these facts in mind, the breather who makes 
no effort to correct wrong habits in this respect cannot 
expect to escape the penalty that sooner or later must 
follow a deviation from Nature's plan. 

It is only among " civilized" mankind where this 
unnatural method of breathing prevails that most people 
regard as a matter of course the multitude of minor 
complaints that affect them from time to time, while 
they feel by no means quite safe against more terrible 
and deadly maladies and epidemics. Among the North 
American tribes, on the contrary, where natural breath- 
ing is habitual, it has been shown there is a marked 
exemption from both classes of ills above indicated, as 
is the case also in the lower grades of animal life, where 
mouth-breathing is unknown. Now, it is somewhat 
remarkable that although the practice of mouth-breath- 
ing is widespread among us, few can be brought at 
first to realize and admit it in their own case. Partly 
by reason, no doubt, that during the daytime eating, 
talking, and business divert the attention from the in- 
voluntary and unintermittent act of inspiration, and, of 
course, it is only upon awaking that the malpractice 
during sleep can be ascertained. Yet it is perhaps 
during the night hours that the chief evil is wrought ; 
that is when the air is coldest and most impure — from lack 
of ventilation — and the lungs least able to withstand the 
strain. Moreover, as scarcely anyone sleeps in a room 
with a wide-open window, or even in a room half venti- 
lated, and when it is remembered how unwholesome is 
the carbonic acid gas thrown off from the lungs, no won- 
der there is so often experienced on waking the parched 
throat, the sense of fatigue and incomplete rest largely 
the result of mouth-breathing. 

The mischief begins in childhood, when the inherited 
tendency asserts itself, and could then be easily averted 
if mothers would only follow the example of their red- 



9 6 WHEN THE MISCHIEF BEGINS. 

skin sisters in this matter. When an Indian mother 
detects a disposition on the part of her child to sleep 
with open mouth, she promptly checks it by gently 
pressing the lips together and so arranging the bed that 
the child's head is propped a little forward, and the first 
sign of the habit discouraged in every way. How much 
suffering might be saved hereafter by this wise pre- 
caution being adopted among civilized races, seeing how 
ineradically wrong habit fastens itself upon men and 
women when acquired at the critical stage of early life. 
For the adult conscious of snoring in slumber, how- 
ever, there is hope if he will resolutely set himself to the 
task of overcoming such a deep-seated and injurious 
habit. It is well known that a determined mental atti- 
tude may, when that end is specially aimed at, be car- 
ried into and influence the involuntary action of sleep ; 
and Mr. Catlin testifies to having himself in this way 
thrown off in middle age the habit alluded to, and re- 
gained, to his great and permanent comfort, the natural 
method of breathing. 

The use of the respirator is distinctly to be con- 
demned. In most cases it is simply a snare tending to 
foster the evil which has brought about its supposed 
necessity, as the wearer to make use of it must of course 
breathe through the mouth. As a temporary expedient 
this appliance may sometimes be of service, but the false 
sense of security its continued use inspires is calculated 
to make more difficult the amendment in the patient's 
habit which is really the desideratum ; and unless he is 
content to permanently adopt this unsightly and awkward 
substitute for his own perfect nasal organism, aggrava- 
tion rather than remedy is likely to be the result. Be- 
sides this, disused organs are exceedingly apt to deterio- 
rate, and the nasal ducts, abandoned, like vacated roads 

{ that grow up to grass and weeds, become the seat of 

' polypus and similar annoying diseases, 



SOUND TEETH OF SAVAGES. g7 

Further, it is an important fact, far too little realized, 
that habitual mouth-breathing encourages many of the 
complaints so widely suffered in connection with the 
teeth. When the mouth is closed during sleep, a secre- 
tion of saliva takes place which floods and cleanses the 
teeth and gums, greatly aiding thereby to maintain them 
in a healthy and unimpaired condition. But when the 
outer air is permitted direct ingress to the mouth contin- 
uously for hours, the mucus membrane becomes dry, 
the flow of saliva is suppressed, and both gums and teeth 
suffer deterioration. Premature decay, tic douloureux, 
and loss of teeth may all in this way be the outcome of 
the habit in question. Malformation and irregularity of 
the teeth are, however, perhaps even more disagreeable 
consequences ensuing from the absence of those early 
maternal attentions which are urged above. When the 
infant's lips are kept together the budding teeth during 
growth constantly meet, and easily and naturally adjust 
themselves — the upper with the lower set — in harmoni- 
ous co-operation. Few of us can see the splendid ivories, 
even and sound to advanced age, of the American In- 
dians and other primitively living peoples, without a 
feeling of envy. But as this is useless in helping our 
own case, the least we can and ought to do is to see to it 
that our children enjoy more favourable conditions for 
proper teeth growth than we have possessed ; and this 
desirable result may be greatly aided in the manner 
described above of insisting on right habits of breathing 
from the first. 

Surely, then, with so long and doleful a catalogue of 
the woes which mouth-breathing entails, it is needless 
to insist further on its immediate abandonment by all 
who are now unfortunate victims of the habit. It will 
be far from easy ; but if only to attain the incalculable 
benefits of sound and wholesome rest during the night 
hours, which comprise nearly one-third of everyone's 



9 8 



THE LUNG PROTECTOR. 



life, the effort is one which will repay itself a thousand- 
fold. 

Mr. J. O. Woods, of New York, has invented a 
valuable device which he calls the Throat and Lung 
Protector.* It consists of a thin sheet of celluloid ad- 
justed to the size of the mouth, to be worn while in 
bed, outside of the teeth and inside of the lips. The ac- 
companying drawing shows the size usually used, and if 
it be too large it can be trimmed down to one or the other 
of the dotted lines, as may be needed. It may feel a little 
awkward for a few days, but the wearer soon gets accus- 
tomed to it, no matter how inveterate the habit may be, 
and it has the great advantage of preventing mouth 
breathing, and of almost entirely overcoming the disa- 
greeable practice of snoring. Personally we can testify 
that we have worn this instrument for more than a year, 
and would not be deprived of it for many hundred times 
its cost. 



*This Protector, together with a copy of Mr. Catlin's valuable book, will 
be sent postfree by the Lung and Throat Protector Co., 52 West 22nd Street, 
New York, on receipt of fifty cents or two shillings. 




CHAPTER VI. 
THE MORNING BATH. 

In a state of nature a daily bath is unnecessary. To 
civilized man, who incases his body in clothing which, 
even when made of the most favourable material, obstructs 
the free passage of the bodily emanations, a daily bath 
is most important. 

There are three principal avenues by which the sys- 
tem is enabled to get rid of its impurities : the kidneys, 
the bowels, and the skin. The large amount of effete 
matter which is excreted through the skin by insensible 
perspiration is most surprising to persons who are made 
acquainted with it for the first time ; and it will be seen 
that it is of the utmost importance that the millions of 
pores of the skin be kept open, and the egress of impuri- 
ties unimpeded. 

There are some advantages in taking a daily bath 
just before retiring. An invalid with a delicate organi- 
zation is more sure of an adequate reaction at such time 
than when taking a bath in the morning. Moreover, 
taken last thing at night, digestion usually is well ad- 
vanced and no further food is to be taken for many 
hours to come, and these conditions are an advantage. 
The disadvantage is that the body has been wearied by 
the day's work, and there is not so much vital force to 
effect a reaction from the effects of a bath at night as in 
the morning. After a good night's rest, which can only 
be assured by seeing to it that no more food has been 



ioo INJURY FROM COLD BATHS. 

taken the preceding day than is necessary for nutrition, 
there is a surplus of vital force, the system is normally 
buoyant and active, and a bath is distinctly valuable. 

Since the discoveries and practices of Priessnitz, 
water-cure processes are known and practiced more or 
less throughout civilization. In our opinion hygienists 
have often erred in the matter of the morning bath. 
Invalids have been advised to plunge into cold water 
without regard to their strength, their reserve of vital 
force, and their power for reaction. Serious damage 
has been inflicted upon invalids and delicate people in 
this way. It is readily admitted that most people who 
persist in this practice find themselves able to bring on 
a reaction, and to become reasonably warm in due time 
after the cold bath. At the same time, we maintain 
that it is at the expense of a too great waste of vital 
power. It is quite true that human beings are enabled 
to endure great varieties of abuse and to seem to pre- 
serve their vigour unimpaired for many years. But it is 
only in the seeming. A perpetual drain upon the vital 
powers, whether it be in overwork, in undersleep, in 
partaking of stimulants, or in overexercise, as in athletic 
competitions — it does not matter what particular form 
the overstrain — one result is certain, a breakdown much 
sooner than would have occurred under more favourable 
conditions. A cold bath to most invalids has the same 
effect upon the general health that any other similar 
strain would have. While we recommend a full eight 
hours' sleep, we are well aware that many persons sleep 
only seven and six and -even five hours daily, and seem 
to be in good vigour. We are sure, nevertheless, that it 
is only a question of time when the health of such per- 
sons must give way. Business men, eager to get on in 
life, are often observed to perform herculean labors, not 
only in the hours usually allotted to work and to busi- 
ness, but early and late, at such times as most people 



IMPORTANCE OF CLEANLINESS. 101 

devote to rest and recreation. And men so engaged for 
years at a time seem to continue in vigorous health. 
Yet it ought not to require great argument to convince 
any thinking person that such practices all tend to one 
result — a premature breakdown. Precisely the same 
happens when persisting in a daily morning cold bath. 
The number of months or years that any person can 
continue it depends upon the constitutional vigour and 
amount of vital force in reserve. But, like indulgence in 
overwork, in insufficient sleep, or in any other method 
of robbing the system of its vital force, such practice 
is surely deleterious in its results.* 

The first and most important end to be sought for in 
the bath is cleanliness. This can manifestly be achieved 
in tepid water in a comfortable room far better than in 
cold water in a cold room. The pores yield up their im- 
purities best during perspiration, and for this reason a 
warm room and quite warm water are best adapted for 
removing impurities from the skin. It is readily granted 
that when a person in vigorous health has thoroughly 
washed himself or herself in tepid water, an application 
of cold water for a moment is distinctly tonic ; and when 
not persevered in long enough to tax the vital powers 
unduly, is of benefit in the same sense as any other 
needed exercise may be. The more vigorous the person 
the less need there is for carefulness in regard to the 
temperature of the room and water. For invalids and 
persons convalescent from attacks of illness, it is ear- 
nestly urged that for purposes of cleanliness warm water 
and a warm room be had for the bath, and when this is 
completed a spongeful of cold water may be poured over 
the person, and the determination of the blood to the 
surface encouraged, with distinct benefit. Persons who 
have long been invalids, or who have poor reactionary 
power, are advised to use a hot bath, and if possible to 

*For further remarks on this subject see following chapter. 



102 HOME TURKISH BA TH 

use it in the morning. Since the Turkish bath has been 
introduced into and become a feature of modern town 
life, it is agreed by physicians of all schools that thorough 
sweating and purification by this means once or twice a 
week is distinctly healthful. All persons who have access 
to a bath-room at home, and are able to get hot water in 
the morning, will be able to realize many of the advan- 
tages of the Turkish bath without its drawbacks. Draw 
sufficient hot water in an ordinary bath-tub that when 
seated on the bottom, the legs and hips will be im- 
mersed ; the temperature of the water preferably about 
108 Fahrenheit. If one should desire the heroic treat- 
ment, let the whole body be immersed, when a perspira- 
tion is much more quickly induced. The disadvantage 
of this practice is a too severe strain upon the nervous 
system, and a tendency to make most people feel faint, 
and if persevered in there might be danger of fainting. 
It will be found that by sitting upright in the hot water, 
with the legs, hips and hands immersed, all the remain- 
ing portion of the body exposed to cold air, this faint- 
ness is largely and with many people entirely avoided. 
There is an added safeguard against this feeling of faint- 
ness if that portion of the body exposed to the air be 
also immersed in the water momentarily, the wet surface 
exposed to the cold air inducing a more rapid loss of heat, 
and a consequent feeling of relief to the nervous system 
ensues. If the skin of the person making this experi- 
ment is in fairly good condition, sensible perspiration 
will be induced in five, ten or twenty minutes. This 
gives plenty of opportunity for bathing with soap those 
portions of the body which need it, and for rubbing the 
entire surface of the body thoroughly. The palm of the 
hand free from soap is found to be one of the best appli- 
ances with which to bring to the surface of the skin the 
impurities which are imbedded in its pores. After per- 
spiration has well started, and the body has been well 



HOT WATER BETTER THAN HOT AIR. 103 

rubbed and bathed, it is then desirable to have a basin of 
cold water and a sponge, with which to give the body a 
thorough rinsing. 

It is believed that this method combines all the 
advantages that may be gained from taking a morning 
bath, and avoids the strain that must be endured by a 
cold bath, and which is too great for many people. 
Immersing only the lower limbs in the heated water 
avoids the strain upon the heart that is felt by most per- 
sons when entering a Turkish bath, or when immersing 
the entire body in heated water. By having the water 
heated to a high temperature, and remaining therein 
five, ten, or even twenty minutes, copious perspiration 
will be induced with most persons, and this is a distinct 
gain. It not only opens and purifies the pores, but 
starts to activity a function which should be reached by 
manual labour or physical exercise, but these most people 
employed in sedentary pursuits do not get. Moreover, 
there are large quantities of porous impurities embedded 
within the skin of almost every person that it is quite 
impossible to remove except by this sensible perspira- 
tion. Any person can prove this by washing the entire 
surface of the body thoroughly with soap and water, 
following it up by drying and rubbing the surface, after 
which, if the person be uninformed in this matter, the 
body would be thought to be thoroughly cleansed. Let 
this same person, however, then immerse the body in 
hot water or in the hot room of a Turkish bath long 
enough to induce copious perspiration. Then let the 
palm of the hand be rubbed over the body with consider- 
able pressure, and the impurities from the pores will be 
seen to roll out on the surface, and the bather who 
before supposed that he had been thoroughly cleaned 
will be surprised to find the amount of effete matter he 
is still laden with. 

The advantage of this practice is seen not only in 



104 REACTION GUARANTEED. 

the greater cleanliness of the person, but it is a distinct 
advantage to have the pores opened, and to induce, even 
by this artificial method, that action of the skin which is 
natural and inevitable when engaged in healthful physi- 
cal exercise. The absolute cleanliness of the skin and 
the encouragement of natural perspiration are both dis- 
tinct advantages. But this is not all that may be 
realized. The final act of pouring cold water upon the 
body for a moment determines the circulation of the 
blood to the surface, and induces a healthful and desir- 
able reaction. This is not all. Persons in delicate 
health, and many who are engaged in various pursuits, 
and who count themselves usually well, suffer more 
or less from cold hands and feet. These persons, in 
attempting to gain the advantages of a morning bath, if 
they take the bath cold are quite apt to find, for some 
time after, distinctly colder hands and feet than when 
not taking the bath. By following the course herein 
recommended the heat of the body is augmented by 
the hot bath, and when the time comes for the cold 
douche there is a surplus amount of heat in the body, 
the reaction from the cold water is immediate and 
thorough, and the bather who has suffered from lack of 
reaction from a cold bath will, by this method, find 
himself distinctly comfortable and in fine condition. 

It is very desirable when preparing this bath that the 
hot water be so high in temperature that it is necessary 
to add considerable cold water to it to obtain the desired 
temperature, as the water rapidly cools as the bather 
remains in it, and it is important to have a supply at 
hand of hot water considerably above the temperature 
of the bath in order that from time to time there may be 
added to the bath enough hot water to keep up the 
temperature to the desired point. 

It is most important to have hot water facilities of 
this kind whenever and wherever possible. It is not 



HOME-SPUN METHODS. 105 

only luxurious and an invaluable aid to health when 
used continuously, but in the event of sudden attacks of 
illness, and especially where the patient is suffering from 
acute pain, access to a hot water bath is of the greatest 
importance. 

In the absence of a hot water bath anyone may 
easily provide a portable hot-air bath such as is referred 
to on page 32. The convalescent, if unable otherwise to 
procure a supply of hot water, can easily heat some in 
his or her room over a common gas stove or oil lamp 
such as are sold for three or four shillings in London, 
and for seventy-five cents or one dollar in New York. A 
common oil stove with a single wick four inches wide, 
provided with a rest for the support of a kettle, answers 
every purpose. The convalescent has but to start the 
oil stove, place over it the amount of water needed for 
the morning bath, and while it is heating start the hot- 
air bath, which can be done in a moment, and in from 
ten to twenty minutes — during which time the water for 
the bath will become heated — the hot-air bath will have 
induced a free perspiration. 

A delicate person, such as has been recommended to 
utilize the hot water for a morning bath, and who has 
recourse to the homely facilities herein recommended, 
can get the essential advantage of the hot bath in this 
manner in any room. All that is necessary is to put 
enough of the hot water in a basin in which the con- 
valescent may stand while bathing. If perspiration has 
first been started in the hot-air bath, there will be no 
difficulty in applying the hot water to effectually cleanse 
the pores from their daily accumulations, and having 
accomplished so much, to conclude with a cold douche 
continued for a longer or shorter time, in accordance 
with the vitality and reactionary power of the bather. 

It may be urged that it would be far better for 
everyone to engage in some manual labour or active 



106 HEALTH COMPENSATES FOR AIL. 

physical exercise sufficiently prolonged to induce a free 
perspiration in a natural way. This is quite true. A 
person inducing perspiration daily in this natural way 
will have no difficulty in keeping the pores clean with- 
out resort to a hot water bath, or a hot-air bath, or any 
of the devices herein recommended. But this book is 
written in the hope of benefiting great multitudes of 
people who are not accustomed to physical exercise, and 
who do not get the benefit of a natural perspiration. 

If it be urged that the course herein recommended 
involves too much trouble, reply is made that good 
health is a sufficient compensation for all the self-denial 
that may be necessary to attain it. A resolute determi- 
nation to accomplish a matter of this kind soon renders 
easy that which before seemed difficult. That which 
we perform automatically or as a matter of course is 
easily done. No man or woman in civilization grumbles 
at the trouble of washing his or her hands and face 
each morning. This is one of those practices which 
universal custom has rendered easy. It has become a 
a matter of course. If any earnest person desirous of 
achieving a vigorous condition of health, who is engaged 
and confined in sedentary employment, will resolutely 
insist on the morning bath as herein recommended, it 
will be found after a few months, or even a few weeks, 
that the trouble is not great, and that the daily delight 
in increased cleanliness and in a satisfied wholesome 
feeling is quite enough compensation for all the trouble 
that it has cost ; and there is an additional compensation 
in the way of improved health that is clear gain. 

It is far more desirable that everyone should have 
active exercise, preferably in the open air. The diffi- 
culty with all perfunctory exercises is that many per- 
sons attempting them for health sooner or later find 
them tedious and discontinue them. It is well known 
that where no other exercise is had, every adult should 



IRKSOMENESS REMOVED BY HABIT, 107 

walk five to eight miles per day; but very few have 
perseverance enough to accomplish it ; the majority of 
people who try it keep it up for a little while ; it begins 
to drag and is omitted and soon discontinued altogether. 
This holds true with dumb-bells and gymnasium exer- 
cises, and largely also with cycling and horseback riding. 
There is the same danger that the morning bath, so 
managed as to effectively cleanse the pores and stimu- 
late a free circulation to the extremities, will also be set 
aside and not persevered in as it deserves. At the same 
time, if this practice be resolutely followed for such a 
number of months that the habit becomes somewhat 
automatic, the difficulty recedes, and after a habit of 
years a lover of cleanliness and wholesome conditions 
would no sooner think of omitting it than of discontinu- 
ing the washing of his hands and face. 

Any person in full vigour is able to take a cold bath 
in the morning and afterward experience a full and de- 
lightful reaction. When this is the case the blood is 
determined to the surface and to the extremities, and 
there is an agreeable warmth and life throughout the 
system. It is advisable, however, even in such cases, 
that the bather continue in the cold water only the 
smallest length of time absolutely necessary, as, al- 
though on account of their great vigour such persons are 
able to endure long bathing and great exposure, there 
is still an unnecessary waste of vitality. But persons 
past middle age, and all who are either invalids or at 
all deficient in vital power, find upon attempting the 
cold douche in the morning that not only is the con- 
tact of the cold water disagreeable at the moment, but 
that there is a greater or less failing on the part of 
the system to react, and the bather finds a greater or 
less chilliness and uncomfortable lassitude, dependent 
upon the extent of weakness. We have found that deli- 
cate persons in this condition are still able not only to 



io8 TO ENJOY A LUXURIOUS BATH. 

enjoy a luxurious bath in the morning, but also by- 
proper preparation to experience the delights of a cold 
douche followed by a very full reaction, and the re- 
freshing impetus to life that a full circulation of the 
blood to the surface of the body and to the extremities 
yields. All that is necessary, as before described, is to 
have a bath-tub of sufficient length to allow the bather 
to sit on its floor with the legs extended, and which will 
hold water enough to envelop the outstretched limbs 
and the hips. Let the water be heated to about io8°, or 
as hot as can be borne. If the skin of the bather is in 
fairly good condition, perceptible perspiration will be 
well started in ten, fifteen or twenty minutes — with 
some persons in five. This bath is most successful 
taken in a cool room, and, when the weather is not 
excessively cold — and at all seasons in England — with 
the window wide open ; and while the lower portion of 
the body is enveloped in hot water the upper portion 
is stimulated and sustained by the brisk air upon it. 
When this bath has been continued long enough to 
induce complete perspiration, usually ten or fifteen min- 
utes, during which time all local bathing with soap 
and needed washing can have been completed, all that 
remains for the delicate person under consideration to 
do is to stand with the feet in this warm water and 
sponge the face and entire person with a large basin- 
ful of cold water, the amount of the cold douche to be 
determined by the powers of the bather and the fullness 
of reaction which is afterward attained. Delicate per- 
sons, and those with a low state of vital powers, are in 
this way enabled not only to secure in a very full degree 
the advantages of opening the pores, and the consequent 
bettering of their condition, but are able also to apply 
considerable quantities of cold water at the final douche, 
and then emerge from the bath with the apparent vigour 
and reactionary power of youth. It is believed that per- 



A COLD DOUCHE BECOMES HARMLESS. 109 

sons so lacking in vigour as to be unable to take a cold 
douche, and to adequately react from it, are still able by 
this method to accomplish it substantially as if in posses- 
sion of full health and vigour. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FATHER KNEIPP'S WATER CURE. 

There is a man living in Worishofen, Bavaria, who 
has had a remarkable career — Father Sebastian Kneipp, 
a parish priest. Father Kneipp is some seventy-five 
years of age, and has followed the calling of priest for 
nearly half a century. In his youth he lost his health ; 
he became possessed of a manual of water-cure practice, 
and through its directions was restored to health. Out 
of gratitude for his recovery, and out of sympathy for 
the suffering poor, he began some forty years since, to 
advise his ailing parishioners how to cure themselves, 
without calling upon a professional doctor, by the use of 
water and a few simple herbs. Father Kneipp's success 
has been phenomenal ; so much so that the fame of his 
wonderful cures was carried first to adjacent towns and 
cities, and finally over Europe; and from doctoring 
peasants he found himself importuned to prescribe for 
wealthy and titled persons. Rich or poor, these patients 
are required to follow what seems a most extraordinary 
treatment, one of the most notable features of which 
is walking barefoot immediately upon arising in the 
morning, and again before retiring at night, in the wet 
grass of the meadows adjacent to the priest's residence. 
The dillettanti of London, Paris, and European capitals 
thronged the priest's village, and last year Baron Roths- 
child was seen walking barefoot with the rest. So suc- 
cessful have been the priest's methods that four water- 
cure establishments have been started in Germany on 



FATHER KNEIPP'S BOOK. in 

his plan within the last five years. Six years ago Father 
Kneipp published a book giving full directions for taking 
his treatment, calling his book "My Water-Cure;" and 
although the price was placed at seven shillings six- 
pence, English money, or nearly two dollars in Ameri- 
can money, there were sold in five years over two hun- 
dred thousand copies. 

The essential difference between Father Kneipp's 
water cure and that which has been in vogue in Europe 
and America is largely in its greater mildness. A cold 
bath is one of his favourite prescriptions ; but he recom- 
mends the patient to remain in the water from one 
to three minutes, depending upon the degree ofvigour 
of the patient ; and those who have a poor circulation 
and a poor power of reaction are cautioned to first take 
a hot bath, and when the system has become thor- 
oughly warmed and invigorated, the patient is advised 
to finish his bath in cold water. 

There is, throughout Father Kneipp's entire book, a 
strenuous effort to prevent his readers from damaging 
themselves by following what may be termed the heroic 
measures of the water-cure processes ; and he is espe- 
cially urgent — although he prefers cold baths to warm — 
that his readers shall not make the mistake of remaining 
in the cold bath too long. The following, quoted from 
his book, page 54, is in illustration: 

' ' Now we come to the reply to the second question : 
How long may a healthy person remain in the cold 
whole -bath ? A gentleman to whom I had ordered two 
such baths a week came to me a fortnight afterwards, 
lamenting that his state had become much worse ; he was 
like a lump of ice. His appearance was that of a great 
sufferer, and I could not understand how the water should 
all at once have left me in the lurch. I asked him if he 
made the application strictly according to my prescrip- 
tion. His answer was: 'Most strictly; I have even 
done more than what you ordered me to do ; instead of 



ii2 A PATIENT SAVED BY MILDNESS. 

one minute, I have remained in the water for five 
minutes; but then I could not possibly get warm again.' 
During the following weeks he made use of the baths 
in the right manner, and soon got back his former nat- 
ural warmth and freshness." 

The following further quotation from Father Kneipp's 
book still further illustrates the much greater mildness 
of his treatment, as compared with the usual processes 
of water cure : 

" A man, ill with typhus, was advised by his doctor 
to go into cold water for a quarter of an hour. He did 
so, but got such a chill afterwards that quite naturally 
he would have nothing to do with such a bath in future. 
He cursed such a remedy. The decision of a competent 
judge was, that after such an experience, applications of 
water could not be used by that patient any more ; be- 
sides, the patient was already lost. With this sentence 
of death they came to me. I advised them to try the 
water again, but instead of a quarter of an hour to let 
the patient remain in the water for ten seconds only (in 
and out) ; the effect, I assured them, would be different. 
No sooner said than done, and in a few days the patient 
was well again." 

That which Father Kneipp prescribes as a cold bath 
can hardly be called a bath. The bather immerses 
his person in the cold water ; remains a minute or much 
less ; puts on his clothes without using a towel or any 
method of drying the body ; and is then directed to oc- 
cupy but two or three minutes in dressing, and at once 
to commence a vigorous walk or work, and continue such 
exercise until a thorough reaction is established, and 
perspiration has begun. These practices can scarcely be 
called bathing ; they are more a method of exciting and 
establishing a rapid and natural circulation where before 
it had been sluggish ; and Father Kneipp has undoubt- 
edly made a valuable contribution toward the solution of 
the problem of how to doctor. 

While he advises walking barefoot in the cold, wet 



WALKING BAREFOOT IN WET GRASS. 113 

grass, or on wet stones, or in frost, he limits the time to 
a few minutes, directs the patient to dress the feet with 
dry shoes and stockings, and at once take active exer- 
cise. People having cold feet will be benefited by stand- 
ing in cold water a short time just before going to bed, 
and by not wiping the feet. This practice encourages a 
flow of blood to the feet. Insomnia frequently may be 
overcome if one will arise from a warm bed, immerse 
the limbs, or the limbs and body — not the head — in cold 
water, and return to bed without wiping. This excites 
a flow of blood from the head to the body, relieves the 
excited brain, and sleep follows. 

Perhaps the greatest novelty in Father Kneipp's 
water cure is in the practice, after a partial or whole 
bath, of dressing without wiping. If our readers suffer- 
ing from defective circulation will put these suggestions 
to the test of experiment, distinct benefit will soon be 
found to follow. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
TURKISH BATH AT HOME. 

The advantages of a Turkish bath are so positive, 
and the results from it so immediate, that establishments 
for affording this luxury to the public have been rapidly 
extended and multiplied during the last twenty years. 
If any person who finds himself or herself threatened 
with a chill, or has a chill already developed, and has 
pain and inflammation and premonitory symptoms of an 
attack of fever — if any such person has an opportunity 
of taking a Turkish bath at once, it frequently may make 
the difference between a severe cold and none at all ; be- 
tween an attack of illness running over days and even 
longer, and a temporary inconvenience wholly dispersed 
the following day. 

If the rationale of the Turkish bath be analyzed, it 
will be found to consist of some conditions which are 
essential, and of accessories which are luxuries and of 
value, but not essential. 

The main thing is to easily and speedily induce a 
free perspiration. Some persons, and especially those 
in frail health, upon going into the hot room feel faint ; 
to relieve this feeling a sponge or cloth should be wet 
with cold water and applied to the head. Veteran 
Turkish bathers experience no faintness upon going into 
the hot room. The usual period during which accus- 
tomed bathers remain in the hot room is from twenty to 
forty minutes, although some persons remain for hours 



DIRECTIONS FOR BATHING. 115 

with alternations of the cold douche, and with seeming 
impunity. 

After a thorough perspiration has been induced, if 
the palm of the hand be rubbed over the surface of the 
body with reasonable force, and persevered in until 
some of the water has been removed and the hand 
begins to cling to the skin, the impurities which were 
embedded in the pores, and which have been thrown out 
and loosened by the perspiration, are forced to the sur- 
face by the clinging hand, and will be seen in consider- 
able quantities on the surface upon the removal of the 
hand. After the entire surface of the body has been well 
rubbed, and the porous impurities removed by copious 
rinsings, a cold douche or a plunge in cold water is given 
the bather, and he retires to the cool room to lie on his 
cot with slight covering, where he remains ordinarily 
about a half -hour before dressing. He is then usually 
sufficiently cooled to go outdoors, even when the out- 
door temperature is quite low. 

As before said, the essentials are that a free perspira- 
tion be induced, that the impurities be brought to the 
surface, that the bather be well rinsed, that he have cold 
water applied to the surface of his body to induce a re- 
action to the surface, and that he have time to cool off. 
The non-essentials consist in the luxury of fine facilities 
for rubbing and rinsing, and an attendant who performs 
all the labour, leaving the bather to take his ease. The 
object of this chapter is to point out that the essential 
advantages of the Turkish bath may be realized in any 
private house which has a bath-room provided with a 
fair-sized bath-tub, hot and cold water, and a window 
which may be opened. As directed in the preceding 
chapter, draw in the tub enough water of a tempera- 
ture of 108 Fahrenheit that when the bather is seated 
on the floor of the tub his limbs and hips will be cov- 
ered. It will be remembered that a Turkish bath estab- 



n6 TEMPERATURE AND DURATION. 

lishment is provided with two or more hot rooms, one 
of which aims ordinarily to have a temperature of 130 
to 150, and the second from 170 to 200, but preferably 
about 180. The object of this provision is that the bather 
shall not be subjected to too great a strain at the outset 
— that high temperature and perspiration shall be ap- 
proached gradually. The same precautions are recom- 
mended in the home Turkish bath. The water at first 
should be about 102 to 104 degrees; but after the bather 
has been seated five or ten minutes, more hot water can 
be drawn and the temperature raised; this can be re- 
peated every five minutes until the desired temperature 
is reached, and usually by this time the bather has 
broken out into a free perspiration. The same latitude 
may be taken as to the time which one should remain 
bathing as is indulged in at the regular Turkish bath, 
some bathers remaining in the hot room only long 
enough to induce a thorough perspiration, others for a 
half-hour and even an hour and more. In this Turkish 
bath by hot water, a free perspiration is easily induced 
in from ten to twenty minutes. It is advised that the 
bather remain in the water and perspire for at least 
twenty minutes more, although a satisfactory cleansing 
of the pores may be accomplished as soon as a thorough 
perspiration is set up. When the bather has had suffi- 
cient perspiration he can himself, without an attendant, 
bring to the surface the porous impurities by the palm 
of the hands as before described. When this has been 
clone over the entire surface of the bqdy within reach of 
the hands, let the bather thoroughly rinse himself in 
the hot water, and afterward give himself a cool shower 
bath ; and if one is not attached to the tub, a very suc- 
cessful substitute is found in a large basinful of cold 
water and a good sponge, which a bather must apply to 
himself in greater or less amount, dependent upon his 
vigor and his ability to react. When this is accom- 



ADVANTAGES OVER TURKISH BATHS. 117 

plished he is recommended to lie on his bed or lounge, 
as if in the cool room of a Turkish bath, covered with a 
woolen sheet or thin blanket. In thirty minutes, and 
often in fifteen or even less, the bather will have been 
sufficiently cooled to resume his clothing and the open 
air. 

While freely admitting that this device is not so lux- 
urious as a well-appointed Turkish bath, we neverthe- 
less wish to point out some decided advantages it pos- 
sesses over the latter. To maintain the hot room at a 
sufficiently high temperature, it is necessary that only a 
relatively small amount of ventilation be permitted, as 
manifestly if this ventilation were sufficiently rapid no 
quantity of heated pipes would maintain the tempera- 
ture sufficiently high. Where the ventilation, as in 
many establishments, is poor, and especially where sev- 
eral bathers are assembled and perspiring in a single 
room at the same time, there is considerable liability of 
each breathing the impurities of the others. In the 
home Turkish bath which we recommend, to begin with 
there is usually but one occupant of the bath-room, and 
it will be found by virtue of immersing the body in hot 
water that the window of the bath-room can be kept 
wide open, and the air which the bather breathes will be 
kept as pure as out-of-doors and correspondingly invig- 
orating. There is another advantage: hygienists are 
aware that in all illness and infirm conditions there is a 
tendency of determination of blood to the head, and of 
cold to the extremities. In the hot room of the ordinary 
Turkish bath, the bather usually takes no precautions to 
have his head any cooler than his feet, and the air which 
he breathes is not only liable to be tainted, but is also of 
too high temperature to come in contact with the vital 
organs. In the home Turkish bath, while the feet are 
guaranteed a high temperature, the head of the bather 
is surrounded by a cool atmosphere, and he is breathing 



n8 MUCH TIME SAVED. 

not only pure but invigorating air. Another advantage 
which is of moment to many people is the fact that all 
the essential benefits that may be obtained at a Turkish 
bath, and which, if bathing is indulged in frequently, 
entails considerable outlay of money, may be realized 
at home without expense. 

Another advantage of the home Turkish bath, in 
addition to the saving of expense, is in the important 
matter of time. Not counting the time necessary to go 
from one's residence or place of business to the Turkish 
bath establishment, some two hours are usually con- 
sumed in the various processes of the bath and dressing 
afterward. Upon rising in the morning, if one is pro- 
vided with a bath-room and an abundant supply of hot 
water, on an average not more than from twenty to 
thirty minutes need be spent in the hot water to bring 
about an efficient perspiration. The remaining, pro- 
cesses of the bath are no different from, and require 
substantially no more time, than anyone usually devotes 
to the morning bath, and after a thorough douche and a 
return to one's dressing-room, the time usually spent in 
making one's toilet will be found adequate for the cool- 
ing-off process, which at the Turkish bath demands con- 
siderable time. Furthermore, the time spent in dressing 
and completing one's toilet at the Turkish bath may be 
wholly saved if the home Turkish bath has been taken 
immediately upon arising. 

A habit of regularity is valuable in all divisions of 
life. It is well known that exercise is a valuable hygienic 
and beneficial aid to health. It would seem out of 
reason to almost everyone if they were recommended to 
exercise two days in the week; one feels instinctively 
that if exercise would be valuable two days in the week 
it would be valuable for seven days. Of course, it is 
better to exercise two days in the week than none at all, 
but most readers will concede that it will be still better 



A DAILY BATH ADVISED. 119 

to exercise daily. Is there any reason why the same 
law will not hold good with regard to the Turkish bath ? 
If it is well for a physician to prescribe to his patients 
two Turkish baths per week, why not one every day? 
We maintain that regularity in this matter will be found 
important, as in all others. It will be found that if only 
about thirty minutes are given each day to the process 
of perspiration by hot water, no weakening or injurious 
results will be perceived. The advantage of a daily 
opening of the pores and the resultant excretion of im- 
purities is undeniable. 

Where the home is provided with a bath-room and 
bath-tub, without hot water, a gas heater may be ob- 
tained in London which will heat enough water for 
one person to commence bathing in thirty minutes, and 
will fill an ordinary bath-tub full of water of as high 
temperature as can be borne within sixty minutes. This 
device is especially applicable to the home Turkish bath, 
because, while the temperature of the water in a bath 
supplied in the usual way is constantly falling, the 
running water from this apparatus is constantly rising 
in temperature, and, as before pointed out, the bather is 
able to stand a higher temperature after having been in 
the water some time than at first. 

Another mode of accomplishing the home Turkish 
bath is by the hot-air bath described on page 32, all 
that is required being that the bather remain over the 
lamp and well covered not only until perspiration is well 
started, but until a sufficient time has elapsed, and then 
bathe the surface in warm water until the porous impuri- 
ties are all removed, and follow up by the shower bath 
or the cold douche by the aid of a sponge. It will be a 
satisfaction to many to learn that this method has all 
the essential advantages of a Turkish bath, and has the 
additional recommendation of being inexpensive, and of 
being available within one's own home. 



CHAPTER IX. 
EXERCISE. 

The office of exercise is twofold. For development 
and growth in childhood it is a necessity ; the universal 
craving in children for active games and sports is in 
obedience to this law. In adults, while the necessity for 
exercise is not so great, it still ranks among the most 
important requisites for health. It is said that it is worse 
to rust out than to wear out. To wear out involves 
overstrain. To rust out means simply the diminution 
of the size and power of the organs from disuse. This 
law applies to all departments of our being. If we are 
to keep a fair share of mental power we must perform 
a fair share of mental work. Fortunate is that man or 
woman who has an occupation that involves considerable 
physical activity. One of the curses of civilization is 
the large amount of sedentary work where the brain and 
the hand are employed while sitting at a desk. 

This is a well-worn theme ; and yet, like many mat- 
ters pertaining to physiology and hygiene, its impor- 
tance is very inadequately perceived, and there is only a 
small proportion of the inhabitants of cities who duly 
appreciate the importance of this matter. A few people 
in England habitually take daily walks; in America 
there are scarcely any who do this , and in England 
the proportion of those who especially need exercise and 
who yet do not follow it is larger than would at first be 
supposed. The difficulty is to find an exercise that is 



ALL KINDS GOOD. 121 

attractive and entertaining. If a man is called upon to 
walk a couple of miles and back where there are no 
omnibuses or public conveyances, he goes cheerfully — 
he is entertained by the sense of usefulness ; but when 
you ask him to take this two-mile walk daily for the 
benefit of his constitution he soon lags and declines. 

Outdoor sports in moderation are especially to be 
encouraged. Lawn tennis, which is now so popular, is 
an admirable exercise, bringing into play nearly all the 
muscles of the body. It is played in the open air ; it is 
played by men and women together ; it has stood the test 
of years, and bids fair to become a permanent institution. 
Croquet has the disadvantage of too much stooping, of 
exercising but one set of muscles, and of requiring no 
special activity. In the absence of other recreations, how- 
ever, this is far better than none. Roller-skating came 
in like a storm on both sides of the Atlantic. It has the 
disadvantage of being carried on usually in a closed room, 
and in a more or less dusty atmosphere. It was very 
enticing, and many of the participants were damaged by 
excess. It has the advantage that it can be carried on 
in wet weather, and it is unquestionably a pity that more 
moderation was not exercised at the outset, which would 
probably have prevented its sudden collapse. Rowing 
and wheeling are both excellent exercises. If these 
methods are analyzed it will be seen that their great 
superiority to walking is owing to the trunk of the body 
being at rest, and a large amount of work can be per- 
formed without causing anything like so much fatigue as 
is consequent on walking, where the body is resting upon 
the legs. Too many rowers contract a habit of stooping ; 
many wheelmen, especially in England, have contracted 
the absurd habit of stooping while in the saddle, which 
is quite unnecessary, if the seat be -placed near enough 
the handles, and the handle raised sufficiently high to 
be easily within reach when in an upright position. 



122 TRICYCLING WEARISOME. 

Some persons prefer the tricycle to the bicycle be- 
cause it develops the same muscular action, and the 
rider is freed from the perpetual watchfulness necessary 
to keep the bicycle in balance. Upon investigation it 
will be found that this difficulty in managing" the bicycle 
is a great merit. As before remarked, one does not ob- 
ject to a couple of miles* walk if there is some useful ob- 
ject to be gained, but to walk perfunctorily for walk's 
sake becomes tedious and is soon discontinued. So rid- 
ing a tricycle soon becomes monotonous. There is 
nothing to learn, it is merely work, and if one is going 
out for exercise there is not even the stimulus of some 
useful occupation, as, for instance, a daily walk to one's 
place of business. Riding the bicycle is a very different 
affair, as there are endless degrees of proficiency. Men 
and women are all children in a way, and are all enter- 
tained by a sense of achievement, and each week and 
each month that the bicycle rider continues he or she 
finds an added skill, a power to do what could not be 
done a month previous, or the power to do something 
more efficiently and skillfully. This constitutes dis- 
tinct entertainment, and of itself makes the bicycle in- 
comparably superior to the tricycle. 

Whatever form of exercise is chosen, it is desirable 
that when possible it be taken in the open air. It is de- 
sirable, also, that perspiration be induced, and that at the 
same time the exercise be not so severe as to be realty 
tiring or wearing. It is in this regard that the time 
honored exercise of walking shows a great defect. The 
support of the entire weight of the body is upon the 
legs. Unlike baseball, cricket, and lawn tennis, the 
movements are monotous and unvaried, and the walker 
finds himself tired before perspiration is induced. In 
rowing and wheeling, on the contrary, the weight of 
the body is borne by the seat, and the rider induces a 
perspiration before much fatigue is noticeable. 



EXERCISE MUST BE ATTRACTIVE. 123 

Many find horseback riding exhilarating" and attract- 
ive. It is a most wholesome exercise, and it is unfortu- 
nate that it is out of the reach of the great army of 
workers. A clerk on a salary of thirty, forty, or fifty 
shillings per week, or in America upon a weekly salary 
of ten, fifteen, or twenty dollars, to whom the purchase 
and keep of a horse would be impracticable, can easily 
buy in London a well-made, serviceable, second-hand 
bicycle for from £6 to ;£io. Similar machines will be 
found considerably dearer in America, but still within 
the reach of the same class, who there receive a higher 
salary. These machines with reasonable care will last 
for years, requiring no feed and not necessarily a large 
expense for keeping in order. 

The gymnasium has its value, but exercise carried 
on in a covered building is not so advantageous as that 
in the open air ; at the same time, its devotees can find 
recreation there when the weather out-of-doors is unsuit- 
able. The great defect with this method of exercise is 
that those who follow it as a rule soon tire of it. It is 
an indispensable requisite before any practical and per- 
manent benefit can be derived from exercise that it 
should be attractive and enjoyable ; most of the exercise 
carried on in the gymnasium too soon becomes perfunc- 
tory and therefore irksome. Any form of exercise that 
may be found so attractive as to be persistently followed 
up is the chief end. Dumb-bells and Indian clubs have 
the important advantage that sedentary people can get the 
benefit of exercising with them in their own rooms and 
in all weather ; but very few persist in their use for a 
longer period than a few months. 

Those women who are obliged to put in a day's exer- 
cise once a week in rubbing clothes in a wash-tub, or daily 
exercise in sweeping and dusting, are far more fortunate 
from a health standpoint than those ladies whose circum- 
stances have placed them beyond the necessity for such 



124 PROFESSOR WRIGHT'S DEVICE. 

work, and who have all such services performed for them. 
The misfortune of the broom-handle and wash-tub exer- 
cise is that it is apt to be excessive and therefore some- 
times injurious. 

The same law holds good in those exercises which 
are performed for pleasure and for health development. 
Great numbers of young men are injured for life from 
excessive exercise — from boat-racing and other contested 
games. Many people are so circumstanced that their 
environment seems to force them to perform an excess- 
ive amount of labour ; but only enlightenment is necessary 
— the development of a fair amount of common sense, and 
the habit of using it — to persuade young men and women 
to embrace all needful opportunities for healthful exer- 
cises, and at the same time to refrain from doing them, 
selves bodily harm by over-indulgence in severe athletic 
contests. 

A great mistake is often made by making exercise 
too severe and laborious. Professor Wright, formerly 
occupying the chair of Surgery in the New York Uni- 
versity Medical College, insists with much force upon 
the great benefit of light gymnastics. He himself uses 
and recommends to others common rubber rings from 
two to six inches in diameter. Engaging a thumb of 
each hand in one of these rings, the hands are swung 
wide apart. At another time, one hand holds the ring 
to the body, and the opposite arm is extended full 
length. There are a variety of movements which will 
occur to anybody for the purpose of developing various 
and many ordinarily unused muscles of the body. Dr. 
Wright uses this exercise while being driven on his 
daily rounds; and his fine muscular development is a 
proof of the efficacy of this form of exercise. Its defect 
is the same as that of many of the gymnastic exercises. 
One soon tires of them, and very few will persevere in 
their use long enough to obtain material benefit. This 



BICYCLING RECOMMENDED. 125 

simple contrivance is referred to as showing- that the 
most thorough muscular development may be attained 
with exercises that are so light as to be scarcely felt, 
only a minimum of exertion being required. The usual 
idea with regard to exercise seems to be that it is 
valuable in the ratio of its severity. Quite the con- 
trary is the truth. The most valuable results in the 
complete muscular development of the body are reached 
with the simplest and lightest exercise. In this is found 
one of the merits of the bicycle. While it is no doubt 
true that cycling becomes severe in racing and in driv- 
ing up steep hills, it is also true that on a fairly level 
and good road one may take as moderate exercise as 
may be desired ; the fact that the weight of the body is 
supported by the seat, and that an insignificant exertion 
of the limbs is required to propel one at a walking pace, 
makes this exercise possible for nearly all persons, what- 
ever their state of debility, when they have mastered 
the art of balancing the wheel. Readers are urged to 
take daily exercise, and it is well for sedentary people 
to devote to it two or three hours daily. At the same 
time they are cautioned against indulging in races or in 
severe exercises. On very smooth and level roads one 
can drive the wheel ten miles in the same time and with 
as little exertion as is required for walking three miles, 
or even less; and sedentary people having no other 
exercise ought to ride a cycle from five to twenty miles 
daily, dependent upon the extent of their vigour and the 
condition of the roads. 



CHAPTER X. 
THE SALISBURY METHOD OF CURE. 

What has come to be known as the Salisbury method 
of treatment is the result of the life work of an Ameri- 
can physician, J. H. Salisbury, M. A., M. D., LL.D., a 
skilful microscopist whose discoveries in diet have en- 
deared him to thousands of patients and invalids who 
have been greatly benefited by his treatment. 

We disagree utterly with Dr. Salisbury as to the 
theory of the proper diet of man, and as to the reason 
why his treatment is so beneficial as it has in many cases 
proved to be ; but one of the principal objects of this 
work is to enable the possessor of it to pilot himself or 
herself from a condition of invalidism to one of health, 
and the Salisbury treatment is of such importance as a 
remedial measure that it cannot well be ignored. 

For the publicity which this system of cure has 
gained in recent years, Dr. Salisbury is indebted very 
much to a disciple and representative in England, Mrs. 
Elma Stuart, whose book * written in a popular and 
racy style, is a synopsis and very complete statement of 
the practical and valuable portions of Dr. Salisbury's 
more ambitious work, ' ' The Relation of Alimentation 
and Disease." 

Any person desirous of getting the benefit of Dr. 
Salisbury's discoveries must begin by taking four pints 
of hot water a day and must restrict the diet to minced 

* "What Must I Do to Get Well ? and How Can I Keep So ? " 5th Edi- 
tion, enlarged. Elma Stuart, Kenilworth. Price, 5s. 3d. 



ADVANTAGES CLAIMED. 127 

beef only. Fully one hour before each of three meals 
per day the patient is required to take on an empty 
stomach one pint of hot water, as hot as can be comfort- 
ably borne ; and from two to three hours after the last 
meals, and shortly before bed-time, take the last pint of 
hot water. The times for meals should be five hours 
apart. It is not essential whether the breakfast come 
at seven, eight, or nine, but it is important that there 
should be an interval of about five hours between meals. 

After a long series of experiments in taking the hot 
water in sips, we advise that it be taken as hot as can be 
comfortably borne, and swallowed quickly. At first 
many patients will fancy that they are unable to take so 
much water, and of course a half -pint will answer to 
begin with ; but better results will be obtained by taking 
the larger quantity. To those unaccustomed to it, this 
practice may at first be somewhat distasteful ; but the 
distinctly invigorating effect, the warmth and exhila- 
ration that follow upon drinking the water, are such that 
the patient usually soon learns to be very fond of that 
which at first was perhaps unpleasant. At the outset a 
little squeeze of lemon makes it less insipid and does no 
especial harm. 

The advantages claimed for this practice are many ; 
(1) It washes out the stomach and intestines, removing 
any mucus or residuum of the food, while at the same 
time it stimulates the flow of digestive juices. (2) It 
stimulates the digestive organs and particularly the liver 
to activity, accelerating the natural flow of bile. (3) It 
stimulates and increases the flow of urine, thereby dis- 
solving the uric acid (which otherwise leaves a brick-dust 
deposit), and induces a clear and natural color. (4) The 
water increases the volume of the blood, stimulates cir- 
culation and vitality, and imparts a sensation of comfort 
and warmth to the body. (5) It is preferable that the 
water be pure soft or distilled, and if so it dissolves the 



128 UNENDING CIRCLE OF BENEFICENT FORCES. 

deposits of earthy matter in the joints and tissues, washes 
out the uric acid, and is particularly advantageous in 
gouty or rheumatic affections. (6) Habitually drinking 
this water at a stated time preceding meals keeps the 
system supplied with its needed liquids, and at the same 
time allows the food to be digested without diluting the 
digestive juices, which is necessarily done by the practice 
of drinking water or any beverage during meal-time. 
(7) In general the habit of drinking hot water will be 
found distinctly invigorating and refreshing ; and, unlike 
any other stimulus, it leaves no bad after-effect. 

In stimulating the various organs of digestion as 
well as the organs of excretion, this practice materially 
assists in overcoming weakness of the stomach now quite 
common, and thus indirectly contributes to the general 
sum total of health — giving appetite for food, which in 
its turn stimulates the flow of digestive juices, and this 
insures the complete assimilation of the food, thus ena- 
bling the patient not only to perform the duties of the day 
with ease and satisfaction, but preparing him for sound 
sleep at night. There is therefore an unending circle 
of forces working for the general good; the increased 
and restful sleep allays inflammation of the system, 
strengthens the nerves, and thereby gives an added 
guarantee that the digestive process will be carried for. 
ward successfully; and when this is so carried on th6 
conditions for sleep are secured. In the case of an 
invalid long out of health, this practice of taking hot 
distilled water half an hour or an hour preceding meals 
results in great benefit. 

Important as the hot water treatment is, the meat 
diet is far more so. The Salisbury treatment may be 
said to consist of two factors : first, the practice of taking 
a large amount of hot water on an empty stomach ; and 
second, confining the patient to lean flesh, preferably 
beef, minced or scraped to thoroughly break down and 



PREPARING THE SALISBURY DIET. 129 

as far as possible remove the connective tissue. The 
leg or ham of beef — that portion usually sold as round or 
buttock steak — is the part preferred. It is recommended 
in the case of very delicate stomachs that the fat, gristle, 
and like parts be removed, and that the lean flesh be run 
through a meat-chopper two or three times to insure a 
thorough breaking down of the connective tissue. This 
minced meat should be loosely made up into round balls 
from half an inch to an inch or more in thickness, and 
three or four inches in diameter. Let a frying-pan be 
made very hot, and the meat balls placed in it, shaking 
the frying-pan to keep the meat from burning; when 
the surface has been browned, turn the ball over, cover- 
ing the frying-pan to keep in the steam, and set it back 
where the meat will cook gently but continuously. It 
should be cooked until all the red color has disappeared. 
A small portion of salt, and when desired a very little 
pepper, may be added. All persons taking this treat- 
ment who are not too stout are advised to add fresh but- 
ter to the meat ; and when the butter is salted no further 
addition of salt is necessary. When preferred, the meat 
cakes can be placed on a common grill or broiler, turning 
the grill often until the red has disappeared from the 
center of the balls. 

Mrs. Stuart prefers a preparation of stewed meat, as 
follows : In preparing beef for a Salisbury steak, a con- 
siderable portion of valuable meat must be discarded. 
This is utilized by slow and long boiling until the value 
of the meat is extracted in soup. Then to one and a 
half pounds of the minced meat add about a pint of the 
meat soup, which has first been allowed to cool and the 
fat removed. Add a little salt and pepper, and stew 
over a gentle fire until the redness of the meat has dis- 
appeared. It will be found that it is not necessary to 
boil the meat ; boiling dissipates some of the valuable 
elements, and distinctly damages it, but it can be 



130 FRUIT WITH MEAT PREFERRED. 

thoroughly cooked without boiling. Many people pre- 
fer this method of cooking to the broiled cakes, and it 
affords a variety to those who care for it. 

Most persons reading these directions for the first 
time will think at once that such a diet would be very 
repulsive and cloying to the appetite. Surprising as it 
may seem, a majority of those who confine themselves 
to this food come to relish it greatly, and not particularly 
to miss the lack of bread or other usual foods. It has 
long been known that hunger is the best sauce ; and 
when an adequate food is furnished to a hungry man, 
the food is relished, digested, assimilated, and passed 
off, leaving the system with a good appetite when the 
time comes for more food. 

It will be found by all persons who try this diet that 
it is not difficult if they resolutely abstain from the use of 
all other foods. If, however, they indulge themselves at 
the outset by tasting, in what may seem to be trifling 
quantities, other and accustomed kinds of food, the 
appetite for the beef is very likely to vanish, and the 
patient will find considerable difficulty in sticking to it. 
Fortunately, for all those not obese and who are not tak- 
ing this diet largely for effecting a reduction of their 
weight, it is not necessary to be wholly confined, as Dr. 
Salisbury recommends, to the minced beef. We have 
found that all the conditions that may be obtained from a 
strict adherence to the beef and hot water regime are 
obtained by the addition of some food-fruits to this diet. 
These fruits may be dates, stewed figs, prunes, raisins, 
sultanas, and — when thoroughly ripe and of good quality 
before drying — peaches or apricots. If too much of this 
fruit be eaten it will cause acidity and flatulence ; on 
the other hand, if those persons confining themselves to 
the Salisbury diet will gradually add such food-fruits, 
they will find a distinctly better relish with the meals, 
the removal of more or less longing that is inevitable 



RATIONALE OF THE MEAT DIET. 131 

with those who are eating only the meat, and a greatly 
improved tendency toward the removal of constipation. 

At the same time, it must be borne in mind that to 
some patients there appears to be nothing so easily di- 
gested, that at the same time gives anything like so 
much nourishment and vitality, as the pulp of lean meat ; 
and if the addition of fruits even when made cautiously 
produces flatulence, heartburn, or other evidences that 
there is fermentation instead of digestion, to such very 
weak stomachs it is best to rely for the time upon beef 
alone, and until the stomach is so far restored that such 
fruits may be safely added. 

The rationale of the beef and hot water treatment is 
easily understood ; that of the hot water is already given. 
Health depends upon nourishment ; a food may be rich 
in all the elements of nutrition, and yet be valueless to 
a person either because it is of itself unfitted to human 
digestion, or because the digestion of such person has 
been weakened by wrong habits, or by heredity, or by 
both, and is thus rendered unable to get nourishment 
from such ill-adapted food. All persons out of health, 
and all whose digestion is weak, and whose nervous sys- 
tem has been overstrained — and this classification in- 
cludes vast numbers, a great majority in civilization — 
are in need of a food which will give greatest nourish- 
ment for the least expenditure of vital force. The lean 
meat of our domestic animals, and of some kinds of game, 
and especially that of beef, answers this demand in a 
remarkable degree. A good quality of beef or mutton, 
roasted or broiled, to the average stomach will be found 
quite easy of digestion, and is more conveniently ob- 
tained than the minced meat, though flesh that has 
been well chopped or minced has its connective tissue 



132 FOOD FOR THE CORPULENT. 

largely destroyed, and this connective tissue offers the 
chief obstacle in the way of digestion. This can also be 
broken down by continuous cooking for hours in succes- 
sion. A simple method of accomplishing this is to put 
the meat into a covered tin or copper vessel, and place 
this in a large stewing vessel. Insert a piece of brick, 
coal or like substance between the bottom of the vessel 
containing the meat and the bottom of the stewpan or 
boiler ; fill with water that will surround the inside vessel 
but not enter it ; cover also the larger vessel, bring it to 
a boil, and keep it gently boiling for about ^snq hours. 
No water is to be placed in the vessel containing the 
meat ; and it will be found after long cooking that the 
connective tissue is substantially destroyed, the meat is 
exceedingly tender, its juices are all retained, and many 
of the advantages secured that result from mincing the 
beef. A good way of cooking such meat, also, is to boil 
in an ordinary boiler with but little water until thor- 
oughly done — from four to six hours. In whatever way 
meat is cooked, skin, gristle, and indigestible lumps must 
not be eaten ; these substances are very difficult to digest, 
and must be avoided. 

If this food be taken only in such quantities as the 
needs of the system demand, it will be found to be less 
liable to fermentation than most foods, and persons 
troubled with flatulence or any other evidence of a 
weakened state of the stomach and bowels will find this 
food especially favourable to the recovery of strength and 
vigorous digestive power. 

All persons who are at all corpulent, having more 
adipose tissue or fat than is natural, will find this diet 
of special value ; and all such will do well to exclude, 
until they are reduced to a normal weight, the fat por- 
tions of the meat, and refrain from the use of butter or 
sweet fruits. A continuous exclusive diet of lean beef 
in quantities barely sufficient for the needs of the sys- 



WHY FRUITS ARE HEALTHFUL. 133 

tern, with the addition of stewed tomatoes or spinach and 
a moderate amount of lettuce and like salads, is sure to 
reduce almost any obese person to their normal weight. 
When such weight is reached, butter and oil may be 
gradually added to the dietary, and also the food fruits. 

One great advantage of a diet composed of a moder- 
ate amount of animal flesh, as beef and mutton, and 
a considerable portion of the food-fruits — dates, figs, 
prunes, sultanas, apples, etc. — is that these fruits are 
distinctly aperient, and overcome the tendency to con- 
stipation which is quite sure to be induced by an exclu- 
sive meat diet. When for any reason these fruits are 
excluded from the dietary, recourse must be had to a 
mild aperient. 

A leading symptom by which to differentiate between 
health and illness is the color and appearance of the skin. 
Persons accustomed to a free use of cereals and starchy 
vegetables, when out of health are quite apt to have a 
pale or anaemic color, and a rough and blotchy skin. 
All such persons who will adopt the diet herein recom- 
mended will be gratified to see in a few weeks' time im- 
provement in their complexion. A pink, healthy hue 
takes the place of the pale color, and the skin becomes 
soft and pliable. Many persons in middle life have 
more or less accumulations of dandruff in the head and 
hair, which is sometimes so plentiful as to need brush- 
ing from the clothes several times a day. This condition 
is frequently changed by the adoption of this diet, and 
sometimes entirely overcome. 

Selecting the right amount of food is a matter of 
great importance. As has been many times pointed out, 
adequate nutrition is absolutely necessary to health and 
vigour. Hence it is of the utmost importance that a 
patient be adequately nourished, and that enough food 
be taken. At the same time, it must be remembered 
that every mouthful more than enough to accomplish 



134 MEASURED AMOUNT OF FOOD. 

this purpose is distinctly a damage ; it is in the way of 
the recovery of health ; indeed, each additional mouthful 
tends to bring on disease. Persons engaged in ordinary 
occupations can readily determine whether they have 
enough food to sustain their strength and vigour from 
meal to meal and from day to day. If they suffer a loss 
of strength an hour or two before their usual meal-time, 
it is an indication (not a proof) that they have not had 
enough food. If on the other hand they do not experi- 
ence a good appetite at meal-time, it is an indication 
that they have had too much food. Since health is of the 
first importance, and since its recovery and continuance 
are especially dependent upon digestion and nourish- 
ment, it is well for all persons to have some knowledge 
as to the quantity which they usually eat. This can 
only be known by measurement. Upon sitting down to 
the table at meal-time, apportion a given amount of food 
to the plate, — such an amount as may be deemed ade- 
quate. When this food has been eaten, it is well for 
that meal to refrain from taking any more, even if there 
is a sharp appetite or inclination, as this will soon wear 
off. If this measured amount seems to have been more 
than sufficient to answer the needs of the body until the 
next meal, and there is little or no appetite, it is a sure 
indication that too much food has been taken, and that 
a less amount should be apportioned. 



CHAPTER XL 

COOKING. 

It is plain enough to any deeply thinking mind that 
man, instead of being naturally a cooking animal, in a 
state of nature was without tools and without fire ; his 
food was spontaneously produced by nature, and was 
eaten quite free from cookery. It is owing to a percep- 
tion of this truth, added to an earnest desire to learn to 
obey the laws of nature, that several modern hygienists 
proclaim their belief that cooking is a distinct damage 
to food, and that in some occult way it destroys a " vital" 
principle inherent in fruit fresh from the hand of nature, 
Having no suspicion that cereals are an unnatural and 
unwholesome food, these hygienists boldly advocate the 
use of those foods raw. It may be noted that this is sub- 
stantially all theory, as no one has been found to reduce 
it to practice for any lengthened period, and for a very 
good reason. If it be granted that such fruits as figs, 
bananas, dates, grapes, pears, etc., are man's natural 
food, it will be seen that these fruits not only do not need 
cooking, but that their attractiveness is greatly injured 
thereby; and that the pulp of these fruits is not only 
soft and juicy, readily dissolving into a fluid-like state, 
but is provided by nature with the most appetising 
sweets and flavors. Nuts also are exceedingly attractive 
to the taste, being loaded with exquisite flavors that are 
not exceeded by any other product, natural or artificial, 
in their power of appeal to the appetite. Moreover, 
these nuts, to any person provided with good teeth, 
although unlike the sweet fruits in being firm and meas- 



136 CAUSE OF COOKING CEREALS. 

urably hard, become by gradual mastication first re- 
duced to a pulp in the mouth, and then converted into a 
cream by an admixture of saliva. While the raw grains 
are quite unlike the sweet fruits, and bear no similarity to 
them, when these grains are milled, softened by cookery, 
and mixed with milk, sugar and other compounds designed 
to add flavor and relish to the product, and thoroughly 
cooked, a pudding thus compounded becomes very 
much like the pulp of the fig or banana; like these 
fruits, it is soft, readily dissolved, and is loaded with 
appetising flavors. We maintain that these facts should 
be kept in view in the consideration as to whether or not 
cooking is advisable. If we could get figs or peaches 
thoroughly ripe, fresh from the tree, cooking except for 
preservation would be an offense. But when these 
fruits have been dried in order that they may be pre- 
served, and have also been transported long distances 
and become hardened, they are most easily restored 
to a condition approximating that in which they were 
when fresh from the tree by the addition of boiling 
water, and in the case of some fruits by a gentle simmer- 
ing for a time. We maintain that under such circum- 
stances so much boiling water or cooking as is required 
to restore these fruits to a condition approximating their 
original state is not only not deleterious, but is necessary, 
and may be denominated natural, in that it largely re- 
stores this food to its natural condition. In the matter of 
the cereals there is an added necessity for cooking. This 
process not only converts the product of the grain — in 
the form of bread, cake, porridge, or pudding — into a 
state more nearly like the pulp of a fresh fruit than is 
the raw grain, but the starch granule is enveloped in 
sacs of such a nature that the digestive juices cannot act 
upon them, and the starch when taken into the stomach 
raw is therefore passed through the intestines largely 
without being digested, whereas cooking cereals bursts 



REASONS FOR COOKING FLESH. 137 

the sacs containing the granules, thereby permitting 
the digestive juices to reach and act upon the starch. 
These facts constitute a scientific demonstration of the 
futility of all efforts to use raw grains as an element of 
human food, and they also explain why man has always 
resorted to fire to make these foods digestible. 

If nuts and sweet fruits be accepted as man's natural 
food, the cooking of cereals, flesh, and vegetables common 
in civilization is but an effort to reduce these various foods 
to a natural condition ; .and the admixture with cereals 
and almost tasteless starchy foods of milk, butter, cheese, 
flesh, and oil yields a product distinctly more natural 
and nourishing than those foods are uncooked, since 
they resemble more nearly our natural food. The same 
is true in regard to fish and flesh. Milk is a product de- 
signed by nature as food, and abounds not only with 
needed elements of nutrition, but with rich and appetis- 
ing flavors. A Brazil nut, or an almond well matured 
and fresh from the tree, if thoroughly masticated is con- 
verted in the mouth into a creamy substance not unlike 
in taste and consistency the cream of milk. Raw flesh 
is distinctly repulsive, not only because of man's inborn 
shrinking from taking the life of animals, but because in 
its raw state it does not approach the condition or taste 
of milk or nuts. A mutton chop or a piece of roast beef 
has undergone in the process of cooking a remarkable 
change from its raw state, and has approached in flavor 
and consistency the nuts which, we maintain, are an 
essential portion of man's natural food ; and because of 
this it will be seen that cooking performs a similar office 
with flesh that it does with cereals — it renders both these 
foods more "natural" — better adapted to man's needs. 

It may be insisted upon in this connection that milk, 
cream, and cooked meats much more nearly resemble 
fresh nuts both in taste and consistency — in fact in all 
essential qualities — than do either raw grains or the so- 



138 NON-STARCH FOOD NATURAL. 

called staff of life ; and it will be seen that these foods 
for this reason are distinctly more natural than bread. 

Furthermore, when it is considered that these cooked 
meats and animal products are adapted to stomach diges- 
tion, and that in this important particular they are like 
nuts and sweet fruits (the oil from animal products and 
from nuts must be digested in the intestines), there will 
be seen a further reason for denominating these foods 
"natural," while cereals and starchy vegetables are ex- 
cluded from this classification. . 



CHAPTER XII. 
PREPARATION OF FOOD. 

Although man is usually designated as a cooking ani- 
mal, there are strong grounds for belief that man's best 
food requires no cooking, indeed is damaged by it. But 
since fruit can best be preserved by drying, it is most 
nearly restored to its natural condition not only by soak- 
ing, but frequently by cooking to make it tender. 

To take the place of bread those foods are specially 
recommended which are richest in heat-giving nourish- 
ment — such as figs, dates, bananas, raisins, sultanas, 
prunes, apples, also peaches, apricots, and the like. Of 
these, dates, figs, and bananas are richest in nourish- 
ment; next come raisins and sultanas; prunes, apples 
and peaches are not so carbonaceous, but are yet valu- 
able for their heat-giving nourishment, and are needed 
to overcome the cloying tendency of the sweeter fruits. 
The ordinary fresh fruits of the North, berries of all 
kinds, cherries, and other stone fruits, are rich in whole- 
some and aperient acids and water, but are not so nutri- 
tious as the foregoing food-fruits. When these fresh 
fruits are obtainable they form a valuable addition to the 
dietary; but it is recommended that chief est reliance 
be placed upon the first-named sweet fruits, together 
with apples, dried plums, and the like ; and where fresh 
fruits are not obtainable, or are too expensive, these 
dried fruits are obtainable in most large centers of civili- 
zation in all seasons of the year at such prices as bring 
them within the means of most people. 

Nuts, although held to be an important part of the 



140 NITROGENOUS FOODS. 

natural food of man, are not easily preserved either by 
drying or otherwise ; and, even when procurable in a 
fresh condition, are with many found to be difficult of di- 
gestion. These nuts are rich in oil and nitrogen, and 
all persons desiring a natural and wholesome diet should 
be provided not only with the fruits above recommended, 
which should constitute fully three-quarters of the regi- 
men, but should also be provided with a food which, like 
nuts, is rich in oil and nitrogen. 

The animal products — eggs, milk, and cheese, and soft 
cheese from curds — known in America as cottage or 
white cheese- — are found to be not so rich in oil as nuts, 
or as is natural and desirable, and when eggs and milk 
are substituted for nuts, it is advisable to add also butter, 
or to use liberally of vegetable oils. 

Beef and mutton, if selected with a fair proportion of 
fat, are found to be more like nuts in their food elements 
than the animal products, and also more easily digested. 
A dietary for an average adult in good health and aver- 
age work may be made of from twelve to twenty ounces 
of beef, mutton, poultry, or fish (it will be noted that 
these foods are about three-quarters water), divided into 
two or three meals per day, and enough of the foregoing 
fruits to satisfy the appetite. If animal flesh be chosen, 
considerable cooking is recommended. The more inex- 
pensive portions of the meat are rendered perfectly 
wholesome by a slow but continuous boiling of from four 
to six hours, care being taken that by the time the cook- 
ing is concluded most of the water shall have evaporated, 
Beef or mutton roasted is equally wholesome, although 
much more expensive. 

Those vegetarians who object to butchers' meat on 
moral grounds, but who are still unable to be adequately 
nourished or restored to good vigour by the use of nuts or 
animal products, are earnestly recommended to adopt 
the course pursued by Mr. Howard Williams, Mr. Ed- 



WHY FISH IS PREFERRED. 141 

ward Maitland, and other devotees of a humane dietary, 
who are lifelong opponents to the slaughter of animals 
and to the use of their flesh as food, but who still are 
constrained to adopt the use of fish as an important fac- 
tor in their regimen ; justifying this course on the ground 
that the life and organism of a fish is much less sacred 
than that of the more highly organized and warmer- 
blooded mammalia. Where suitable fresh fish is not ob- 
tainable, a good quality of sardines, as free as possible 
from salt, will be found a most valuable food resource ; 
as sold in the shops they have the additional merit of be- 
ing provided with a liberal amount of vegetable oil. 

The animal products have the advantage of requiring 
little cooking. Eggs are much more wholesome scram- 
bled or made into an omelet than with the yolk cooked 
hard by itself. An excellent way of cooking eggs is to 
allow them to stand in very hot water, not boiling, until 
the yolk is hardened, while the white is in the condition 
of jelly. It is very important where eggs are used as a 
principal portion of the diet that a plentiful supply of 
butter or other foods rich in oil be added to them. 

It will be found that the exquisite flavor of fruits and 
the great number of varieties at our command afford a 
very appetizing dietary the year round ; and that where 
only so much of flesh for animal products are used as 
may be needed by the organism, this food will be found 
to be as appetizing at the end of a month or a year as at 
the beginning. 

Nuts are much preferable to eggs or milk in that they 
are rich in oil. Those persons who would be pleased to 
avoid the use of flesh and animal products are advised to 
try a dietary of nuts, where they can be obtained in good 
condition, cooked in conjunction with the sweet fruits. 
A pound of shelled Brazil nuts, or walnuts, or filberts, 
or hazel nuts, may be added to a pound of dates, a pound 
of dried figs, and a pound of raisins. See to it that the 



142 A WHOLESOME PUDDING. 

dried fruit is properly washed, and it will be found to 
mix better if sliced thin and the stones removed from 
the dates ; the nuts are also better sliced. Put this to- 
gether in a pudding-dish, and cover with enough water 
to give the desired consistency to the pudding after bak- 
ing two hours ; or the jar may be placed in boiling water, 
and the water kept boiling two and a half or three hours. 
A portion of this pudding may be eaten with the more 
acid fruits above mentioned, well ripened, and if it be 
desired to eat only a small portion of pudding and more 
of the fruit, the pudding may be made with double the 
quantity of nuts, and thus the needed amount of oil can 
be obtained with a smaller bulk of pudding. 

Those persons who do not object to the use of eggs 
and milk on ethical grounds, and who are able to digest 
milk, will find dates and milk, or figs and milk (either 
fresh or dried fruits slightly softened) a very wholesome 
and satisfying dietary. A half -pint of milk and half- 
pound of dates make an ample and satisfying meal for a 
person engaged in sedentary labour. 

A very wholesome and appetising food may be made 
by stewing dates or figs with gooseberries, cherries, or 
other dried acid fruits. Currants, both red and black, 
and sultanas, may be stewed together, and sweetened 
with dates or figs to taste. An endless variety of dishes 
may be made with such combinations. 

A not unwholesome pudding is prepared with cocoa- 
nut and eggs and milk; the usual proportions of egg 
and milk for custard, with the addition of soaked cocoa- 
nut, cooked in the ordinary way. Three eggs beaten 
up, added to a quart of milk sweetened with honey, 
baked into a custard, is a good way of preparing eggs 
and milk ; dates may be used instead of honey. It will 
be found, however, that those persons who confine their 
diet to fruits on the one hand, and only enough fish, 
flesh, or animal products to give the required nitrogen 



WATER THE ONLY WHOLESOME DRINK. 143 

and oil, on the other hand, will have an equally enjoy- 
able dietary, and far more wholesome; since puddings 
of all kinds are apt to displace the fruits which are so 
necessary to health. 

In the matter of drink it is strongly recommended 
that tea, coffee, cocoa, wine and beer be wholly dis- 
pensed with. A half -pint to a pint of hot water, taken 
from half an hour to an hour before meals, will wash 
out the stomach, give a needed stimulus to those people 
who have a weak digestion, give the needed volume to 
the blood, and the water that is added to the dried fruits, 
or that is found in fresh fruits, will be all the drink that 
is required at meal-times. 

It is quite impossible to give hard and fast rules as 
to quantities and times of eating, and the like. It is 
recommended that not less than two meals per day and 
not more than three be taken. It is desirable that 
enough food be eaten at each meal to support the person 
in good vigour and keep off faintness until the next meal- 
time, but not so much as to prevent a good appetite by 
the next meal. 

It is quite important to measure or weigh the amount 
of fish, flesh, or animal products that are eaten at any 
one meal. By this means, if more is apportioned than 
is needed to keep the body nourished until the time for 
the succeeding meal, a less amount can be apportioned 
for subsequent meals. On the other hand, if the weighed 
or measured quantity prove insufficient, a larger portion 
may be taken at a subsequent meal ; and by this practice 
of ascertaining how much food is taken, it is easy for 
any person to determine the amount that is needed daily. 
As before remarked, it is important that enough be 
taken to keep the system well nourished from one meal- 
time to another, and at the same time not enough to 
prevent an appetite when meal-time arrives. The fruits 
can be left more to one's appetite and desire ; although 



144 COARSE GRAINS IRRITATE. 

when more fruits are eaten than the needs of the system 
require a certain damage is done, though of a less serious 
nature than that in the case of other foods. 

The main thing to remember is that coarse bread and 
grains irritate and inflame; whereas fruits, while sub- 
serving the same purposes in keeping up the heat of the 
body and in nourishment that are performed by bread 
and cereals, have in addition a specific acid which is 
chemically aperient and blood purifying, and hence 
fruits, even by this fact alone, are proven to be the 
natural food of man. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

WHOLEMEAL BREAD. 

Wholemeal bread is made from meal or flour from 
which the bran has not been removed. The following 
is taken from Sir Henry Thomson's book, "Food and 
Feeding," 6th Edition, page 40: 

"I have just adverted to the bread of the labourer, 
and recommended that it should be made from entire 
wholemeal; but it should not be too coarsely ground. 
Extreme coarseness in wholewheat meal, as it is usually 
termed, is a condition designed to exert a specific effect 
on the digestion for those who need it, and, useful as it 
is in its place, it is not desirable for the average popula- 
tion referred to. At the same time, no portion of the 
husk of the grain should be removed from the wheat 
when ground, whether coarsely or finely, into meal. 
That a partial removal is systematically advocated by 
some as an improvement, is one of the numerous illus- 
trations of the modern and almost universal craze which 
just now exists among food purveyors of almost every 
description for eliminating all inert or innutritious mat- 
ter from the food we eat. This extraordinary care to 
employ nothing in our diet but matter which has nutri- 
tive value, that is, that can be absorbed into the system, 
is founded upon want of elementary knowledge of the 
first principles of digestion ; and yet, strange to say, the 
mistaken, indeed mischievous practice is supported, 
probably for want of thought, by many who ought to 
know better. 

" It seems now to be almost overlooked that no 
proper action of the intestines can take place unless a 
very considerable quantity of inert matter is present in 



146 BRAN INDIGESTIBLE AND INFLAMING. 

our daily food, existing as material which cannot be 
digested. By this character we are not to suppose that 
it is in the least degree indigestible, in the sense of that 
term when employed to mean difficult digestion, but 
only that it passes unchanged through the body, neither 
receiving nor exciting any action. When there is a 
considerable proportion of this in the food the bowels 
can act daily and regularly, having a mass which they 
can transmit." 

Many writers on hygiene who are either in favour of 
or friendly to vegetarianism hold the same views pro- 
pounded in the above extract. It is all the more note- 
worthy when taken from an acknowledged authority in a 
popular school of medicine, and indicates the far-reaching 
nature of the influence that has been exerted by the 
friends of what is now known as wholemeal bread and 
coarse grain food. 

If a grain of wheat be examined under a microscope, 
it will be seen to be a most formidable looking affair, 
having sharp, serrated edges, and admirably calculated 
to wound and inflame the linings of the stomach and in- 
testines. Upon experiment it will be found that the 
bran is not in the slightest degree influenced by any of 
the digestive juices, and when voided from the body is 
substantially in the same condition as when taken into 
it. It is quite true that wholewheat meal is a substance 
' ' designed to exert a specific effect on the digestion for 
those who need it;" that is, a person of a costive habit 
can, by using plentifully of wheat meal from which the 
bran has not been removed, so irritate the stomach and 
bowels that a daily action is quite sure to take place. If 
using such foods was the only way in which such daily 
action of the bowels could be induced, this course would 
be excusable, but we maintain that it is not only "not 
desirable for the average population," but that it is not 
desirable in any case. 

Undoubtedly man's digestive organs are adapted to 



INFLAMMATION CAUSES FLATULENCE. 147 

the food which nature has provided for man ; and if it 
be conceded that the sweet fruits and nuts of the south 
are man's natural food, it will be seen that these foods 
have an abundant supply of the innutritious and inert 
matter which Sir Henry quite truly points out as being 
necessary to insure a proper action of the intestines. It 
will be found, however, that this waste material — the 
skins and seeds of fruits, and the skins of nuts — has 
none of the bristling, rasping, saw-like action that is 
peculiar to bran, and that such fruits can be eaten with 
impunity, so far as a mechanical inflammation of the 
intestines is concerned. 

When persons suffering from costiveness have been 
advised to use bran bread, or coarse grains, the first 
indication of the inflammation caused by the bran is 
noticed in the increased flatulence that very generally 
follows the adoption of wholemeal products. Herein 
consists the difference between the loosening effect of 
fruit — man's natural aperient — and that which follows 
the use of wholemeal bread and coarse grains. Fruit 
causes free movement of the bowels without inflamma- 
tion and irritation. The aperient effect of wholemeal 
bread is the result of irritation caused by the fine particles 
of bran, which act like so many small knives in passing 
through the intestines. That fruit is aperient quite in- 
dependently of mechanical irritation may be proved by 
taking the juice of the apple or fig. It is well known 
that such fruit juices are very opening in their nature, 
and it is plain that this aperient effect cannot be from 
any mechanical irritation, nor is it accomplished by such 
fruit contributing inert matter to the food, since the 
entire fruit juice, both the water and the fruit held in 
solution, are absorbable into the system. Many aperient 
remedies which are used to stimulate the action of the 
bowels accomplish this result not by mechanical irrita- 
tion, but by inducing a flow of water from the blood 



148 BRAN ALWAYS DAMAGES BREAD. 

into the intestines, and the aperient action of fruits is 
brought about in this manner. On the other hand, fine 
flour with the bran removed is quite universally ac- 
knowledged to have a constipating effect, and since the 
addition of bran induces action of the bowels, and 
since this bran after passing through the body has not 
been chemically (or otherwise) changed, it is plain that 
the aperient action of the wholemeal bread is the result 
of mechanical irritation. 

We claim that nature's methods are always best; 
that fruit is nature's aperient ; and that best results will 
be obtained when a sufficient admixture of such fruits 
with the dietary is made as may be necessary to induce 
a natural action of the bowels. But while we agree with 
Sir Henry that bran bread has ' ' a specific effect on the 
digestion for those who need it," we maintain that it is 
not useful and not so desirable for any person as it is to 
give them the same bread with the bran removed ; and, 
in the absence of aperient fruits, that it is better to 
give opening medicine than to continually inflame the 
stomach and intestines by mechanical irritants. While 
we do not recommend the use of cereals in any form, we 
nevertheless recognize that if such foods are to be eaten 
it is better to avoid the waste of their valuable gluten ; 
and in this sense wholemeal bread is better than bread 
made from fine flour from which not only the bran but 
also a considerable portion of the gluten has been re- 
moved. That such removal is not necessary is proven 
by the fact that several flour manufacturers in America 
decorticate the grains of wheat before they are ground, 
a process which removes all of the bran, but which does 
not remove any of the gluten, as is quite sure to be the 
case as wheat is ordinarily ground. A large proportion 
of the gluten in a grain of wheat is found adjoining the 
outer coating, and in the usual process of milling, when 
the bran is removed considerable gluten adheres to it. 



PROFESSOR GOODFELLOW CONFIRMS. 149 

But when the grain is first peeled, none of the gluten is 
removed with the bran, and the entire wheat, so far as 
its nutritious properties are concerned, is retained, while 
at the same time the irritating flouty skin is entirely re- 
moved. If wheat is to be taken at all, undoubtedly this 
form is preferable to flour which has been impoverished 
by a partial removal of gluten. At the same time, rather 
than irritate the stomach and bowels with the bran 
knives it is far better to eat bread that is made from 
flour from which a portion of the gluten has been re- 
moved, and make up the deficit by adding flesh or ani- 
mal products to the dietary. 

Regarding the contention that brown bread and coarse 
cereals are productive of inflammation by mechanical 
irritation, the following quotation from Professor Good- 
fellow's " Dietetic Value of Bread" (MacMillan & Co.) is 
in point. It is to be remembered that this book is writ- 
ten to celebrate the virtues of bread; and when its 
author is forced into an acknowledgment of very serious 
drawbacks it naturally carries more weight than if writ- 
ten by a partisan of the fruit diet. The matter quoted is 
taken from pages 198 and 199: 

' ' The ingestion of a large quantity of ordinary whole- 
meal bread with other foods increases the percentage of 
waste in those foods. When an individual lives on milk 
alone for a considerable period, the waste varies from 5 
to 9 per cent. , according to the digestive powers of the 
individual. In a subject experimented on by the author, 
the waste was found to be about 8 per cent, when milk 
formed the only food. When ordinary wholemeal bread 
was given in addition to the milk, the waste in the 
milk rose to nearly 11 per cent. The same results 
were obtained with other foods. This increase of waste 
is probably due to the more frequent evacuations of the 
bowels produced by the irritation of the bran particles. 
Summing up, we may fairly come to the following con- 
clusions concerning ordinary wholemeal (i. e., coarse) 
bread. 



150 SCIENTIFIC PROOFS AGAINST BROWN BREAD. 

(i) It contains more actual waste matter than white 
bread. 

(2) It is not so thoroughly digested as white bread. 

(3) Its ingestion in considerable quantities leads to an 
increase of waste in other foods. 

(4) It may cause diarrhoea and irritate the villous coat 
of the intestine." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CONSERVATION OF FORCE. 

Probably no subject connected with health and 
hygiene is at once so important and so little understood 
as the conservation of vital force. Everyone is aware 
of the importance of a surplus in a similar domain — of 
the desirability of keeping a goodly sum in reserve with 
the banker. The simile is nearer than the reader might 
be at first willing to concede. The relations of man to 
man in modern civilization are such that money is sub- 
stantially indispensable to accomplish one's ends in life. 
Vital force is not less important in the physiological 
domain. Unfortunately, there is this great difference ; 
one can easily know whether, in the case of the bank, 
more money is being deposited than is being withdrawn, 
and can know if perchance the drafts are in excess of 
the deposits. Not so in transactions with the bank of 
life. The human organism is largely a self -regulating 
machine. It is so constructed and arranged that if 
excessive drafts during youth and middle life are made 
upon the vital forces, a corresponding provision is also 
made by nature, and the required amount of vital force 
is forthcoming. Moreover, no explicit sign is given the 
individual that life's forces are being withdrawn, that 
the drafts on the bank are in excess of the deposits. An 
illustration in point came under the observation of the 
writer in his youth. In a locality where in winter the 
temperature not infrequently sinks to twenty, thirty, and 
even forty degrees below freezing, a farmer, a young 



152 TOWN BRED BOYS EXCEL FARMERS' SONS. 

man but little past twenty years of age, busied himself 
every winter in hauling loads of wood to a village five 
or six miles distant. It was this young man's pride that 
he needed no coat even in winter, and he would traverse 
the entire distance, over poor roads, and with a slow 
team, with not even an undercoat, on the coldest days. 
It is now plain enough that this young man, who came 
from a most vigorous family, with muscles of iron and 
with abounding vigour, was perpetually lowering his sur- 
plus. Shortly after reaching thirty he became an invalid, 
and died in a few years. 

During the time of the American Civil War, some 
most unexpected facts in reference to the soldiers were 
observed. Companies composed of farmers' sons, when 
in the exigencies and strain of active service, were 
proven to be less hardy and less enduring than those com- 
panies made up from young men of the towns — clerks, 
salesmen, and the like — who had always been sheltered 
in well-warmed offices and shops, and had never been 
exposed to the rigors of the northern winter. These 
young men, although not having nearly so great a mus- 
cular development as the farmers and labourers, and 
although not nearly so accustomed to hardships and 
strain, were nevertheless able to endure the severities 
incident to an active campaign far better than the farm- 
ers' sons and others who had been accustomed to expos- 
ure. The solution of these phenomena is plain. A 
young man exposing himself day after day, during long 
winters, without even a coat, is constantly running be- 
hind in his store of vital force. As before said, unfor- 
tunately the self-adjusting organism does not at once 
give any signal of alarm ; the more the draft, apparently 
the greater the supply. The same was found true gen- 
erally of those whose occupation necessitated an expos- 
ure to the severity of winter. Apparently in abounding 
health, with well-developed physical frames, and accus- 



O VERSTRAIN PRO VES FA TAL. . 153 

tomed to hardships and exposure, nevertheless, when a 
great strain had to be endured, these men had already 
exhausted a portion of their surplus in bank, and gave 
out sooner than the young men from the city, who, 
although not so well developed muscularly, nevertheless 
had a larger reserve or surplus of vital force. Similar 
facts are observable the world over. People are often 
surprised that this or the other friend or acquaintance, 
who had always been esteemed robust, succumbed to 
death after a few days' illness ; whereas those who have 
been ailing from childhood, and who are seemingly 
obliged to care for their health and to guard against 
exposure and overstrain, while never robust, nor able to 
endure any great strain, at the same time usually con- 
tinue the battle of life to old age. The robust man who 
in early or middle life succumbs to an attack of illness 
has been accustomed for years to issue far greater drafts 
upon his vital force than he had made provision for, 
so that when he is subjected to a severe trial physical 
bankruptcy and death ensue. 

The means by which men and women overdraw their 
surplus of vitality are manifold. Not infrequently people 
in apparent vigour accustom themselves to only six, or 
five, or even four hours of sleep during the twenty- 
four, devoting the remainder to doing two days' work in 
one. Owing to the wonderful provision of nature before 
referred to, apparently the more such a person demands 
of the organism, the more there is at hand to respond, 
and it is quite true that one in vigorous health may, 
even for years, habitually sleep one, two, or even three 
hours less in the twenty-four than nature demands, and 
work four, six, or even eight hours more than is natural 
and wholesome, and still apparently be in good health. 
The day of reckoning, however, comes ; the poison of 
an epidemic enters such a system, there is not a sufficient 
reserve of vital force to expel the intruder, and as a 



154 VITAL FORCE PROOF AGAINST DISEASE. 

consequence collapse and death ensue. The individual 
himself and his friends and acquaintances, not having 
this matter called to their attention, have no suspicion of 
what is the real cause of the breakdown. It may be 
quite true that another member of the family is exposed 
to the same contagion, and either does not have even an 
attack, or if attacked is able in a few days to throw it off 
and make a quick recovery. A thoughtful person will 
see that where two are exposed to the same contagion, 
and one escapes with little or no inconvenience, while 
the other succumbs, the reason is that the one has a 
large reserve of vital force, and the other has overdrawn 
his account. 

Unfortunately, loss of sleep is only one among many 
of the methods taken to waste one's reserve of vitality. 
Many persons insist not only upon devoting the full 
hours of a busy day to matters of business, but bring 
the problems home to their meals and their firesides, 
and such persons are really engaged in severe mental 
work substantially all of their waking hours. When in 
five, or ten, or twenty years the inevitable breakdown 
ensues, the victim and his friends have little understand- 
ing of the real cause. 

This law applies in the same way and with equal 
force to all the poison habits. Scientific physicians are 
aware that when the vital forces are exhilarated and 
made unnaturally active by the use of any agent like alco- 
hol, this activity is inevitably followed by a correspond- 
ing depression of the nervous system. This is applicable 
to all "pick-me-ups" and tonics of every description, 
whether tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, or opium. Unfor- 
tunately, in these instances, as in the case of the young 
man who exposed himself to the winter without ade- 
quate clothing, nature does not at first sound the alarm. 
One can use a moderate amount of tea, coffee, tobacco, 
or alcohol, and be apparently in as good a condition as 



ALL POISON HABITS LOWER VITALITY. > 155 

another who abstains from all these articles, but when- 
ever a test can be made it will be seen that those men 
who have habitually refrained from all such poisons, 
other things being equal, will undergo fatigue and 
hardship which those people accustomed to stimulants, 
but who may have given no sign of their being damaged 
thereby, will be unable to endure. No two persons are 
exactly alike. The sum total of the vital force of each 
individual depends upon the temperateness of his or her 
life, and the amountof vigourinherited from the parents. 
Persons especially vigorous are able to take a surprisingly 
large amount of any of these poisons with comparative 
impunity ; but the law is universal and unfailing. Who- 
ever habitually deprives himself or herself of the natural 
amount of sleep is lowering the bank of vitality ; the 
same is true of anyone who indulges in overwork, or in 
any of the stimulants above mentioned. All excesses are 
distinctly a drain upon vital energy. Exercise in mod- 
eration, and up to the needs of the system, is a most 
important and indispensable requisite, but contests in ath- 
letic sports conduce to overstrain, and many young men 
have come to their death from an excessive indulgence in 
these sports, while many more have permanently injured 
themselves. It is probable that those who have indulged 
in excessive strain and severe contests, and who have 
not noticed any unfavorable results therefrom, are dis- 
tinctly weakened thereby, just as the farmers and young 
men inured to hardship and inclement weather, although 
having no consciousness of illness or that their vitality 
had been lowered, were still seen to be deficient when 
pitted against those young men from the towns who had 
not been exposed to the severe strain and hardships in- 
cident to rural life. If it be true, as we maintain, that 
the natural life of man is from 100 to 120 years, the fact 
that three score years and ten is now considered the full 
measure wshows that the race has been so deteriorated by 



156 FEAR— AN UNREAD TELEGRAM KILLS. 

its various excesses, indulgences, and overstrain, that 
there is a deficit of fully fifty years even in the case of 
those who have escaped the mortality of childhood ; and 
this deficit is the result of the various strains and ex- 
cesses that abound upon every side. The graduate of 
the university who has indulged in athletic contests, and 
unconsciously damaged himself thereby, has still a store 
of vitality sufficient to enable him to overstrain again 
when he comes to the competitive contests of professional 
or business life, and the sum total of his excesses, made 
up of undersleep, overwork and the like, constitutes the 
cause of his premature death — we say premature, though 
he may have reached the traditional seventy years. 

Fear and intense solicitude of all kinds are distinctly 
a drain upon vital force. An illustration of the terrible 
effects that may result from fear occurs in a case recently 
narrated by the public press. A woman solicitous about 
the welfare of a son at a distance received a telegram 
from those watching over him, bearing to her the glad 
tidings that the crisis had been reached and that her son 
was out of danger. Without opening the despatch the 
anxious mother, overcome by her fears that its contents 
were unfavorable, died almost instantly. In this case 
the strain was so great that everyone could see its 
deadly effect. In the majority of instances, although 
people are distinctly damaged, and are given less power 
to withstand the encroachments of disease, and have their 
term of life distinctly shortened, they nevertheless are 
unconscious of any permanent harm for the simple rea- 
son that the debit and credit account of their vital force 
is not kept and published by nature from day to day. 

One of the advantages of the Mind Cure or Christian 
Science movement that in recent times has attracted so 
much attention in America, and which is being also agi- 
tated somewhat in England, is that it allays fear and 
therefore cuts off one source of the waste of vital force. 



ALL INDULGENCE WEAKENS. 157 

Anger or rage is a severe strain upon the vital powers ; 
and for this reason, if for no other, it is a condition that 
everyone should strive to avoid. 

The indulgence of the passion^ is another fruitful 
source of diminished vitality, crippled usefulness, and 
shortened life. As in the other sources before mentioned, 
the victim is not conscious that his powers are being un- 
dermined, but there are abundant proofs that it is true 
notwithstanding. We earnestly maintain that the pur- 
suit of pleasure for pleasure's sake, wherein any physical 
act is concerned, is not lawful ; and that violation of this 
law always results in a greater or less diminution of the 
powers of life. If mankind could in a day be persuaded 
to refrain from indulgence in the sexual relation except 
for purposes of procreation, an amazing improvement, in 
greater freedom from nervous disease and from all dis- 
eased conditions that have their source in the nervous 
system, would be at once manifest. 

Overeating is another abuse, and, like the one just 
named, as universal as the race. As elsewhere pointed 
out in this work, digestion is distinctly under control of 
the nervous system. Nature is equal to the performance 
of all needed duties, and the digestion of a needed 
amount of natural food, in normal conditions, requires 
no exhaustion of vital force. But when more food is 
taken than is required for the needs of the system, not 
only that food must be digested from which the system 
absorbs its needed nutrition, but the excess must be dis- 
posed of, and this involves a heavy drain upon vitality. 
Furthermore, the use of all starch foods, as elsewhere 
elaborately shown in this work, produces a great waste of 
vital power. 

This list could be further extended, but enough has 
probably been said to impress the thoughtful student of 
hygiene with the great importance of this subject. Our 
chief purpose is to impress it upon the reader that be- 



158 ALL TRANSGRESSIONS LESSEN VITAL FORCE. 

cause there is no daily registration of the damage done 
the system by overwork, overeating, insufficient sleep, 
the use of stimulants and narcotics, and the indulgence 
of the appetites and passions, or the use of starch foods, 
it does not follow that there is not a daily deterioration 
of the vis natura or natural force of the individual. In- 
deed, there is abundant evidence to prove that such de- 
terioration is inevitable. Thousands of persons now oc- 
cupants of insane asylums, and tens of thousands who 
are suffering a living death of gloom and melancholy be- 
cause of a debilitated nervous system, are the victims of 
the various poison habits, excesses, and dietetic errors 
herein referred to. 



CHAPTER XV. 
CORPULENCE— ITS CAUSE AND CURE. 

One who has abstained from intoxicants until middle 
life, but who nevertheless, from incorrect diet, or over- 
work, or any such reason finds himself or herself in 
somewhat frail health, if persuaded to take light wine 
or beer with meals is apt at first to feel decided improve- 
ment. The stimulus of the wine for a time increases 
the digestive powers, and the patient consequently has 
an improved appetite, and digests and assimilates a 
greater amount of nourishment. Unfortunately the 
alcohol, which has done some good by stimulating the 
appetite and digestion, soon begins its work of under- 
mining the nervous system, and in due time, if its en- 
tire effect be considered, it will be found to have done 
decidedly more harm than good. 

Likewise, anyone who has been in rather frail health 
up to middle life, and perhaps somewhat emaciated, and 
finds himself or herself eating more food and with a 
better relish than formerly, and notices also a gradual 
increase in weight and roundness, considers these unmis- 
takable evidences of improved health. Very few even 
among physicians are aware of the dangers which threaten 
such an individual. If a person in such circumstances 
should so manage his or her diet as not to permit a greater 
accumulation of flesh than is normal or natural, the 
threatened dangers would be avoided. According to a 
record of averages compiled by insurance companies, 



i6o 



TABLE OF NORMAL WEIGHTS. 



taken from observation of over three thousand persons, 
the normal or natural weights for given heights are in 
accordance with the following table, which includes the 
weight of ordinary clothing : 

Table of Relative Height and Weight. 



Height. 


Min. Weight. 


Max. Weight. 


Average. 


5 


98 


132 


1*5 


5-i 


I02 


138 


I20 


5-2 


106 


144 


!25 


5-3 


III 


I50 


I30 ' 
135/ 


5-4 


"5 


155 


5-5 


119 


l6l 


I40 


5-6 


121 


165 


143 


5-7 


123 


167 


145 


5-8 


126 


170 


I48 


5-9 


131 


179 


155 


5-i° 


I36 


184 


l6o 


5" 


138 


190 


165 


6 


141 


196 


I70 


6.1 


144 


202 


175 


6.2 


153 


207 


l8o 


6.3 


157 


213 


185 



Unfortunately nearly all persons — including a large 
proportion of physicians — are under the impression that 
a moderate obesity, when occurring in middle life, is 
natural to many human beings. Scientific physicians 
are aware that there is only a small amount of adipose 
tissue — some seven pounds in a person weighing 154 — 
in the human organism ; and are also aware that each 
pound above the normal amount is a detriment in vari- 
ous ways. Among the more serious of these may be 
mentioned the pressure upon the vital organs caused by 
increasing surplus flesh, and the degeneration of the heart 
and other organs that frequently follows in obesity's 



INCREASING WITH AGE UNNATURAL. 161 

train. But a majority of these same physicians, un- 
aware of the readiness with which obesity or corpulence 
can be controlled, regard this infirmity as if it were in- 
evitable; and have no thought whatever either of its 
serious nature or of advising such measures as are sure 
to reduce and control it. As before stated, the most 
unfortunate feature in regard to the encouragement of 
this disease is the well-nigh universal ignorance concern- 
ing it, — the conviction on the part of most persons that a 
moderate rotundity and increase of weight in middle 
life is desirable rather than otherwise. Many people 
have rheumatism in middle life. Among some races 
and peoples cases of rheumatism are far more frequent 
than are cases of obesity or corpulence among others. 
But rheumatism or similar disorders give a convincing 
demonstration of their unnaturalness the moment they 
take possession of the human frame ; whereas during the 
early years of obesity the victim is quite apt to feel an 
increase of vigour, and enjoy better health than before 
the obesity commenced. 

It is not alone in the presence of a surplus amount of 
flesh in the system, encroaching upon the vital organs, 
and interfering with their natural and needed activity, 
that the danger of obesity lies ; the obese are more sus- 
ceptible to attacks of illness of all kinds than persons of 
normal weight. In the matter of taking cold the obese 
are, as a rule, much more liable than they were before 
obesity supervened. Rheumatism is more frequent and 
more severe. The same is true of the frequency and 
severity of attacks of sick headache, neuralgia, and simi- 
lar disorders. Mr. Banting, whose name has become 
famous by his writings upon this subject, was afflicted 
with partial deafness, and the reduction of his obesity 
largely restored his hearing. In a practice extending 
over a number of years, we have had many cases where 
a similar restoration of hearing followed the reduction of 



1 62 DR. PAGE'S TESTIMONY. 

obesity. Inflammatory diseases of all kinds, as before 
said, are most apt to attack the obese or corpulent, and 
readers will be able to perceive from observation among 
their own acquaintances that the corpulent are not as 
long-lived and do not enjoy as good health as others. A 
gifted hygienic physician, Dr. C. M. Page, in treating 
this topic writes : 

" A fat person, at whatever period of life, has not a 
sound tissue in his body ; not only is the entire muscular 
system degenerated with the fatty particles, but the vital 
organs — heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, liver, etc., — are 
likewise mottled throughout, like rust spots in a steel 
watch spring, liable to fail at any moment. The gifted 
Gambetta, whom M. Rochefort styled the fatted satrap, 
died — far under his prime — because of his depraved con- 
dition ; a slight gunshot wound from which a clean man 
would have speedily recovered ended this obese diabetic's 
life. Events sufficiently convincing are constantly occur- 
ring on both sides of the Atlantic ; every hour men are 
rolling into ditches of death because they do not learn 
how to live. These ditches have fictitious names — grief, 
fright, apoplexy, kidney troubles, heart disease, etc.,-— 
but the true name is chronic self -abuse." 

Fortunately there is a considerably greater apprehen- 
sion in the public mind now than a few years ago as to 
the evils of growing fat. The writings of Mr. Banting, 
an enthusiastic layman who was greatly helped by a re- 
duction of obesity, and whose interest in his fellow men 
prompted him to make as widely known as possible 
some thirty years ago his method of cure, has done much 
to dispel some of the dense ignorance concerning this 
topic ; and in more recent years the illness of Bismarck, 
and his restoration through the reduction of his obesity, 
was also a great help to spread knowledge on this most 
important subject. 

The exciting cause of obesity is the ingestion of more 
food that the system requires, together with the weaken- 
ing of the excretory organs, which results in the failure 



STARCH FOODS CAUSE CORPULENCE. 163 

of the system to adequately throw off its waste matter. 
But the profound and primal cause of obesity will one day 
be recognized to be the use of cereal and starch foods. 
An obese person weighing two, four, or six stone, or 
twenty-five, fifty, or eighty pounds, or even a still larger 
amount, more than is natural, may be given a diet of 
flesh with water, with or without the addition of starch- 
less vegetables, as lettuce, watercress, tomatoes, spinach, 
and the like, excluding bread, pulses, and potatoes, and 
the patient will be gradually but surely reduced to his 
normal weight. A perseverance in this diet is sure to 
prevent a return to obesity. As soon, however, as the 
patient returns to his usual diet of bread and potatoes he 
straightway begins to increase in weight ; and while an 
obese patient can easily be reduced eight pounds per 
month when placed upon a flesh diet, he will gain fully 
this much or more upon returning to a free use of bread 
and starch vegetables. If this patient who has been 
reduced, and who has again developed obesity, is per- 
suaded to again adopt the exclusive flesh diet, again the 
reduction is sure to take place ; and in the course of our 
practice this process has been repeated among many 
patients, and in a few a reduction and return to flesh has 
been repeated three times. It is plain from such demon- 
strations that without starch foods co rpulency would not 
exist. Chemically starch foods are chiefly carbon ; adi- 
pose tissue is also carbon, and it would naturally be ex- 
pected that a diet of oil and the fat of animal flesh would 
contribute quite as much to obesity as bread and starch 
foods. But experience proves that such is not the case. 
The reason for this is not, in the present state of science, 
understood ; it will likely be found in the fact that starch 
foods undergo a complicated process of digestion, where- 
as oils require only emulsion to render them assimilable 
by the system. 

If an autopsy be held upon the body of an obese 



1 64 WATER DRINKING NOT THE CAUSE. 

person, the abnormal weight will be found to be due to 
an accumulation of adipose tissue and water — the pres- 
ence of water in the tissue is plainly visible and adds 
considerably to the bulk. From this fact has arisen the 
practice of advising obese persons to drink as little water 
as possible. A moderate amount of shrinkage can be 
accomplished by this course ; but it is one which we do 
not recommend. Water is a necessity to the organism ; it 
is invaluable not only in keeping up the volume of the 
blood, but in aiding the excretion of waste matter through 
the bowels and kidneys. And since a reduction can 
safely, and in a majority of instances quite rapidly be 
induced by a non-starch diet and an unlimited amount 
of water, we do not favour limiting the patient in the 
amount of liquid. 

The courage and strength of conviction possessed by 
the average family doctor is curious to behold. It will 
be found to be inversely to the ratio of his knowledge. 
The less conversant he is with this malady the greater 
confidence he seems to have in his opinions. During 
the years that we were in practice some hundreds of 
patients came to us for assistance in this trouble, a large 
number of whom were under the control of their family 
physician. Many of these patients came in defiance of 
the express orders of their physicians ; and while they 
had assumed courage enough to disobey their orders and 
come to us, they needed much encouragement to en- 
able them to proceed with any confidence. They were 
usually told by their medical advisers that in them it 
was natural to be stout, that they had ' ' better leave well 
enough alone," and the direst results were prophesied 
in the event that they had the temerity to proceed. In 
point of fact these patients quite invariably experienced 
nothing but the happiest results. Many of them came 
out of an interest in their personal appearance ; finding 
their figures destroyed and their beauty going, they 



OBESITY IS A DISEASE. 165 

desired restoration to their youthful form and feature. 
Others, again, were annoyed at clumsiness in getting 
about, shortness of breath in climbing stairs, and the 
general awkwardness and inconvenience that result from 
this "too, too solid flesh." Only a small proportion of 
these patients came from a knowledge that obesity is a 
disease, that it encourages other states of inflammation 
and other diseases, and that its reduction is a great aid 
in the return of health. But while these patients as 
a rule did not come to us with this expectation, it 
was common for them to testify to great benefits that 
had resulted from their treatment. These benefits 
were quite frequently greater than the patient would 
readily admit or remember. It was our custom, with all 
patients beginning treatment, to take the name, age, 
height, weight, and a list of the infirmities, if any, from 
which they were suffering. These details were elicited 
by a series of questions, and the answers duly recorded. 
Out of sight out of mind is the old adage ; and human 
beings are fortunately so conditioned that when their 
aches and pains have taken flight they forget not infre- 
quently that they were ever present. Many of these 
patients would have stoutly denied the benefit rendered 
but for the diagnosis taken at the beginning of treat- 
ment, and a reference to which only would convince 
them of the condition they had been in. 

The proper treatment for the reduction of obesity is 
as simple as it is effective. Many people are under the 
impression that it is necessary to take unwonted exercise ; 
and that taking only a very limited amount of fluid is 
permissible. In point of fact, all that is necessary is to 
induce the patient resolutely to abstain from all bread, 
cereals, and starchy vegetables. Almost any flesh food 
is admissible, although the lean will be found to be more 
favourable to reduction than the fat, and beef is more 
effective and desirable than any other. A patient will 



166 TREATMENT FOR REDUCTION. 

need from one pound to two and a half pounds per 
day, according to the amount of obesity and the amount 
of exercise that must be taken. The obese patient 
rarely needs more than two meals a day. We usually 
ordered patients to abstain from their breakfast, to take 
their first meal about twelve o'clock, and the last one at 
the usual dinner time — six, seven, or eight in the even- 
ing. Many patients weighing from ioo to 250 pounds 
(from seven to eighteen stone) more than is natural 
will frequently be adequately nourished on a half-pound 
of lean beef taken twice a day, and from two to four 
pints of hot water taken before meals and before going 
to bed. Others again of less obesity and with greater 
need for exercise or work require about double this 
amount of food, and in some instances even more. 
Most patients unaccustomed to this diet are apt to think 
it a great hardship to eat beef, and beef only, and we 
made it a custom to allow these patients not only lettuce, 
cress, and such salads, but a moderate amount of spinach, 
tomatoes, and similar starchless vegetables. These foods 
contain substantially no nourishment, but they distend 
the stomach and afford bulk, which is thought by many 
physiologists to be important. At the same time, any 
person who will confine himself or herself to beef only 
will in a few weeks find no inconvenience whatever from 
this diet. It must be understood, however, that the cessa- 
tion of the use of bread and the accustomed vegetables is 
usually followed by constipation, and a mild cathartic 
is indispensable. We gave our patients one made from 
aperient herbs. 

The corpulent patient reading this and resolving to 
follow this treatment is recommended to read the chap- 
ter entitled " The Curative Action of Regimen." For 
reasons explained in that chapter nature not infrequently 
seizes upon a favourable moment for accomplishing re- 
pairs in the organism; and when a patient who has 



SOME SELF-DENIAL REQUIRED. 167 

really had profound difficulties to contend with ceases 
the use of coarse foods and those which are difficult of 
digestion, and commences an exclusive diet of beef in 
small quantities each day, such a person is expending 
relatively so small an amount of vital power upon diges- 
tion that the system is encouraged to undertake repairs. 
While this is going on, as is more fully explained in the 
chapter referred to, the patient is liable to have lassitude 
and a feeling of general weariness ; but if he or she finds 
himself or herself in this situation, and will only perse- 
vere, this unpleasant state of affairs will soon gradually 
pass away, and the patient will almost invariably find not 
only a return to a more normal weight and shape, and to 
an increased ease in getting about, but a much greater 
freedom from the accustomed headache, or neuralgia, 
or bronchitis, or liability to take cold, and a distinct in- 
crease in vigour and general health. 

We do not wish to disguise the fact that considerable 
will-power and self-denial, on the part of the obese pa- 
tient who is otherwise in fair health and possesses a 
vigorous appetite, are required to faithfully follow the 
treatment. Such persons are apt to be obliged resolutely 
to abstain from those foods which they have been accus- 
tomed to, the temptations to partake of which they will 
meet nearly everywhere. This is also true, however, of 
the moderate drinker or smoker who discontinues his al- 
cohol or tobacco. The difficulty of mastering habit in 
these matters is no reason why it should not be at- 
tempted, nor why it should not be accomplished as suc- 
cessfully in regard to the course of diet necessary to re- 
duce obesity as in regard to tobacco and liquor. As re- 
gards the amount of difficulty to be overcome, or the 
self-denial to be exercised, it is fortunate that this is felt 
in its severity only a few days. Anyone who will reso- 
lutely abstain from all forbidden foods, and as resolutely 
confine himself or herself to the lean of beef and to hot 



iC8 ADVANTAGES OP REDUCTION. 

water as a drink, will find after a week or two an excel- 
lent appetite for the needed amount of food ; and more- 
over, within twenty minutes of the time a meal is fin- 
ished the patient will find himself not only free from 
craving or longing for any kind of food, but distinctly 
lighter and in better condition than when partaking of 
the usual diet. As before remarked, strong resolution 
and self-denial are required at the outset. But persever- 
ance will soon reduce the self-denial to a minimum. 

The advantages of this reduction are manifold. It 
is not alone that the former victim to obesity is able to get 
about with old-time ease and facility, to walk fast or run, 
climb stairs, etc., without getting out of breath; but 
perhaps the most important benefits arise from the in- 
creased health and vigour of the patient and the reduced 
liability to the encroachment of disease. 

There are few persons who are without regard for 
their personal appearance. A tumor arising in one 
cheek which enlarges it quite out of all proportion to the 
other would be recognized by all as a deformity. If, 
however, a tumor should arise in each cheek, while the 
balance of the face would be preserved plainly there 
would be deformity all the same. If, going further, this 
tumor was almost equally distributed over the whole 
body, the deformity would be less marked because the 
distribution would be more general, and the symmetry 
better maintained. All the same, the equal distribution 
of the tumor of obesity does not save it from being a 
deformity or mild monstrosity. The transformation that 
takes place from the grace and symmetry of a youthful 
figure and the embonpoint of middle life is so gradual 
that the victim has no daily notification of it, and his 
friends and companions also usually fail to notice it. Any 
person can, however, readily see the extent of this de- 
formity or monstrosity by noting the grace and easy 
movements of a willowy young actor or actress upon the 



OBESITY A DANGEROUS DEFORMITY. 169 

stage, and by imagining what the effect would be if this 
actor or actress were transformed in a moment into an 
obese person who would carry himself or herself with 
difficulty, and go through the part with the consequent 
awkwardness. A scene of great beauty would instantly 
become ludicrous and repugnant. An artist in the por- 
traiture of ideal men and women is no more apt to repre- 
sent them as obese than to depict them the victims of any 
other disease or monstrosity. The Three Graces repre- 
sented by three corpulent women would at once be grace- 
less and disgraceful. Because the change from the sym- 
metry of youth to the stoutness of middle life has re- 
quired years of time instead of a moment to accomplish, 
as in the hypothetical illustration of the stage, in an ab- 
solute sense the transformation is no less repugnant and 
monstrous. It is our contention not only that it is 
natural for human beings to be well, but also the inten- 
tion of nature that the supple, graceful forms of youth 
should remain throughout old age ; and that a man or 
woman at eighty should have substantially the same fig- 
ure as at twenty. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
THE CURATIVE ACTION OF REGIMEN. 

The following essay was published under the above 
heading in the London Vegetarian (February 4th, 1888), 
a year and a half before we made the discovery of the 
injurious nature of cereal and starch foods. It is repro- 
duced in this connection because it is believed to be a 
valuable statement of an important physiological law, 
namely, that after a person who has for years been 
transgressing the laws of his being, for example, in the 
matter of diet, is placed upon a more natural and whole- 
some regimen, such person is not unlikely for a time to 
exhibit greater weakness and lassitude than before the 
change to a more favourable diet was made. We hold 
that this phenomenon is the result of the apparent per- 
ception on the part of the occult forces of nature that 
under the improved conditions a favourable opportunity 
is given to undertake repairs ; and while this recupera- 
tive work is going on, and the vital energies of the sys- 
tem are being devoted to this restoration, there is not 
vital force enough in addition to carry on the usual pro- 
cesses of life with even that vigour that was manifested 
before the restoration was undertaken. 

At first thought it seems strange, in view of the fact 
that cereal and starch foods are shown to be unnatural 
and unwholesome, that the change from an ordinary 
mixed diet to the usual vegetarian regimen should prove 
beneficial, since theoretically such converts are eating a 



RESULTS OF EXCESS IN FOOD. 171 

food more exclusively composed of starch foods than be- 
fore. This does not necessarily happen. One of the 
greatest errors in diet is eating too much — using an 
amount of food greatly in excess of the needs of the sys- 
tem. When a person who has been following the ordi- 
nary diet becomes interested in vegetarianism, and 
becomes a convert, he or she is very apt at the same time 
to learn the importance of temperance and a more hygi- 
enic life. In obeying a prompting to follow this hygienic 
life, very frequently a much smaller amount of food is 
taken than before, and hence in many instances an act- 
ually smaller quantity of starch foods than was before 
consumed. This, together with the fact that a convert 
to vegetarianism is apt to use less tea, coffee, wine, and 
the like, and in general to live more simply and more in 
accordance with hygienic demands, is the explanation 
of why it is that such converts not infrequently make 
unmistakable gains in their conditions of health, although 
in many instances starch forms a larger proportion of 
the food than before. 

For many years before the discovery of the natural 
food system, it was our custom to put a large majority 
of invalids not obese who came to us for treatment upon 
an exclusive diet of brown bread and milk. This food 
was usually given three times a day, only in such quan- 
tity as was demanded by the appetite and thoroughly 
relished. No other food whatever was added. We now 
perceive that milk bore a more important part in the 
beneficial results attained than we took note of at the 
time ; but certain it is that the patients who were per- 
suaded to adopt that simple diet and to continue its use 
for months, sometimes even for years, were wonderfully 
benefited. It is to be remembered that they were not 
permitted the use of tea, coffee, or wine, and that water 
constituted their only drink. The following is the article 
referred to; 



SOME MISTAKES OF VEGETARIANS.* 
By Dr. Helen Densmore. 

Health is man s birthright. It is as natural to be well as 
to be born. All pathological conditions ', all diseases and all 
tendencies to disease, are the result of the transgression of 
hygienic and physiologic law. This is the science of health 
in a nut-shell. 

But man has traveled far from his first estate. 
Through the devious ways of civilization he has forgot- 
ten, if he ever knew, the higher law of physical life, and 
has become effete, diseased, and prematurely decrepit. 
It is also true that he is not at all aware that his physical 
troubles all come from such disobedience ; does not 
know that he has a right to health, that he need no more 
be ill when he understands this, than to get drunk or to 
steal. And this is the gospel that the food reform prop- 
aganda is destined to give to the world. 

But in reading the literature, and listening to the 
speeches at vegetarian meetings, I often regret the rose- 
ate picture that is painted by its enthusiastic agitators of 
the benefits which they say are sure to come easily and 
quickly with the change from the present diet of civiliza- 
tion to a plain, non-flesh diet, advocated by this new dis- 
pensation. No warnings are sounded that there may be 
quicksands ahead ; no danger signals are given that there 
may be troubled waters before reaching port in safety, 
and no lights to show the way safely out of the shoals. 

There is ignorance on all sides regarding the cura- 
tive action that is likely to be set up in the system when 
this change is first made, and this accounts for so many 
well-intentioned experimenters trying it for a time and 
deciding against it after trial, because it did not seem to 
agree with them. 

When a man who has been addicted to the use of 
stimulating drinks desires to reform, and stops the use 

* This essay is here given as originally published except that it is modi- 
fied, in the matter of diet, to conform to recent discoveries concerning the 
deleterious nature of starch foods — bread, cereals, pulses, and potatoes. 
— H. D. 



INJURIES OF DIET CUMULATIVE. 17 3 

of such drinks, taking water instead, lie is quite apt to 
feel ill at first. He often loses his appetite, grows thin, 
and finds himself in a less vigorous state physically ; but 
he knows well enough that, if he resumes his accus- 
tomed drams, he will soon brace up, and for the time 
feel better. Similar experience is likely to follow the 
breaking off of any poison habit. Indeed, it is the 
opinion of eminent medical authorities that, after the 
habit of arsenic eating has been followed for many years, 
it is impossible to wholly discontinue it without fatal 
results. This condition is well understood in regard to 
leaving of! tobacco, morphine, chloral, etc., and when 
lassitude, and loss of strength follow, no apprehension 
is felt. 

The truth is, that errors in diet become a fixed habit 
to which the system will cling, notwithstanding injuri- 
ous results ; tea and coffee are unnatural stimulants, and 
when one has used them for thirty, forty or fifty years, 
the habit is fixed, and nature, true to her purpose of 
preserving life at all hazards, proceeds to adjust the 
system to the intruder in the most favourable manner. 
Physiologists explain that a dose of poison strong enough 
to kill instantly may be divided into small doses, and 
taken at intervals, and the effect not be noticeable at the 
time, but that it becomes cumulative in effect; and 
though it takes much longer, it does its full work in 
time. So the results of injurious diet is cumulative, and 
has its effect in ten, twenty, forty or more years, in 
rheumatism, gout, kidney affections, cancer, pulmonary 
consumption, and so on to the end of the chapter ; and 
when the system is released from this cause of trouble, 
when the habit is changed from the diet of civilization 
to a more natural one, relieved of the necessity of stand- 
ing guard at the digestive tube to dispose of the poison- 
ous elements daily taken into the stomach to the best 
possible advantage, nature at once proceeds to set up a 
curative action — the elimination of accumulated disease 
germs ; and this action is quite likely to create some of 
the same symptoms seen in the case of the reformed 
drunkard, viz., lassitude, loss of appetite, dyspeptic symp- 
toms, etc. If, at this juncture, a wise food-reformer, 



174 NOT WHOLLY BANKRUPT. 

himself acquainted with this truth, explains this mani- 
festation, exciting the "expectant attention" of the 
patient, who patiently waits for the promised results, 
then will follow all the joys — and they can hardly be 
overdrawn — that are painted by the most enthusiastic 
devotee of a natural diet. 

In a personal experience and medical practice of 
years devoted to hygienic and dietetic methods, Dr. 
Densmore and I have proved the correctness of this in 
hundreds of cases. But such is the nature of prejudice, 
and the tendency to cling to old schools and forms, that 
when these manifestations appear, even when warned, 
and so somewhat prepared for them, more fall through 
the fear born of this ignorance of the curative action 
than continue the food-reform life ; and if it is difficult 
when warned, how much more difficult when totally 
ignorant of the real cause of the trouble, and what won- 
der is it that so many succumb? 

If it were true that, after so many years of abuse, 
we could stop the wrong course of living, and all the 
blessings of health follow immediately, it would be proof 
that this disobedience is not so bad after all. When we 
consider the wonderful mechanism of the human organ- 
ism, the certainty with which all of its organs perform 
their allotted work, the inevitable penalty that has to 
be paid for every physiological sin that is committed, 
and then consider the trangressions committed for so 
many years, before the bills of credit began to mature, 
we ought not to be surprised that it takes a few years to 
repair the damage done in a life-time ; and, instead of 
complaining at the discomfort entailed, we should rather 
be thankful that it is not too late ; that our accounts are 
not closed, and we found to be totally bankrupt in health. 

It is true that some do make this change with very 
little or no discomfort. Such persons are favoured with 
strong constitutional powers that have enabled them to 
resist the inroads of disease and the development of 
hereditary tendencies, or are free from such tendencies. 
Others, having strong digestive powers, are enabled to 
digest and assimilate unaccustomed food from the first, 
and so get on comparatively well ; being well nourished, 



DIETING DISCOURAGED. 175 

the craving for the stimulating foods abandoned is not 
so great, and improvement in the physical condition 
begins to be felt immediately. This would happen gen- 
erally with the young at once. But by far the larger 
number meet the curative action sooner or later, and it 
may not come for some time. 

With the drunkard the curative action is recognized 
at once ; all know that it is not the water that is making 
him ill, but the alcoholic poison which he had been be- 
fore accustomed to. So mother, sister, sweetheart, and 
friends with one accord appeal to him to keep up his 
courage, notwithstanding his apparently bad symptoms. 
How differently is the poor dyspeptic treated when he 
attempts to reform in diet ! With one accord his friends 
try to prevail upon him to abandon it ; assure him that 
he is killing himself ; read him tomes of medical author- 
ities to show that he is impoverishing his blood by this 
" low diet; " and when he returns to the old injurious 
diet, just as with the dram of spirits in the case of the 
drunkard, the effect is to stop the curative action ; he 
feels braced up, and this is taken as proof that he was 
all wrong, and the accumulation of disease commences 
again. 

Another mistake of food-reformers is in painting a 
too roseate picture of the change, from a failure to rec- 
ognize the price demanded of the devotee in the divorce- 
ment which a strictly hygienic life, conscientiously car- 
ried forward, causes from one's accustomed social life. 
Eating is made so much a feature of every form of social 
communion, that to refuse to enter into its artificial 
pleasures is looked upon by hosts and guests alike as an 
impoliteness. It is somewhat like a total abstainer giv- 
ing a midnight revel and refusing to drink wine. This 
is one of the difficulties to be admitted and met, when 
the pros and cons of this new reform in food are being 
discussed. 

It is well known, when one has become accustomed 
to the poison habit of opium, alcohol, or tobacco, that it 
is a slavery difficult to overthrow. It will be found that 
the habit of eating improper food, when once formed, is 
also difficult to be overcome, and if to this there has been 



176 RESULTS OF BREAD-AND-MILK DIET. 

added the baneful habit of tea and coffee drinking, the 
inconvenience is increased. The difficulty of overcom- 
ing these pernicious habits is made still greater when 
the attitude of one's companions, friends, and society is 
taken into account. 

A mistake is often made in counseling a too- abrupt 
change. If one is young, or has great vigour, and the 
powers of digestion and assimilation have not been too 
much weakened by unnatural foods, and the necessary 
quantity of natural foods can be easily digested and as- 
similated — such a person can be advantageously put upon 
fruit and nuts at once, and all will go well. But most 
persons have so long depended upon improper foods for 
a large share of their nourishment that their digestive 
organs have become weakened ; and if such people are 
persuaded abruptly to change to brown bread and fruit, 
it will be found they are quite likely to suffer from flatu- 
lence, indigestion, etc., and, what is worse, their weak- 
ened stomachs have not the required vigour necessary to 
abstract the needed nourishment from cereal foods, and 
they really suffer from lack of nourishment; this is a 
prolific source of disease. We have found that such per- 
sons thrive much better for a time — some patients have 
persevered for years — on bread and milk than on bread 
and fruit. This is because milk is much more easily 
digested and assimilated by weakened stomachs than 
bread ; at the same time, we do not regard milk as a 
natural or desirable food, but as a most invaluable crutch 
on which the enfeebled victim may lean in passing from 
the usual diet of civilization to a fruit diet. One, two, 
and even three years of milk yield the most satisfactory 
results, where an abrupt change to bread and fruit 
would result in emaciation, weakness, discouragement, 
and their abandonment — or worse.* It is natural and 



*We have had many instances of entire success with patients who had a 
life-long dislike of milk, and with others who liked the taste, but had sup- 
posed they could not use it ; said it did not "agree" with them, that it 
gave them indigestion, heaviness, and made them "bilious. " We have 
found that, while it is true that such persons cannot use milk in addition to 
the usual hotel and mixed diet, when they are put upon a monotonous diet 
of brown bread and milk, and when necessary all other food excluded a few 
days — in extreme cases a few weeks — all difficulty has disappeared. We 
insist that the patient must not drink the milk, but eat only so much of 



TO BE ILL IS A SIN. 177 

desirable that the digestive organs should have vigorous 
exercise in performing their physiological functions; 
and fruit and nuts afford just the exercise needed. A 
man in vigorous health needs exercise — it is indispens- 
able ; but it is often as unwise to put an enfeebled invalid 
abruptly on a diet of nuts and fruit as to insist that 
a sedentary invalid, unaccustomed to exercise, shall at 
once commence a daily constitutional of eight miles. 

But after all these difficulties are fully acknowledged 
and appreciated, and due weight allowed for all the 
drawbacks it is possible to discover, there is quite 
enough of blessedness and compensation to charm any 
earnest soul who has an ambition to take his birth- 
right — Health. It is just this ambition for health that 
is sadly lacking in the modern mind. There was a 
glimpse of sanity in the old Spartan practice of putting 
to death the weak, sickly, and deformed children at 
birth. It was a dim perception of the truth that to be 
ill is a monstrosity. And when we learn that illness is 
always the result of disobedience to law ; when we come 
to know that it need never be, — that it comes only with 
the violation of plainly written laws of health, we shall 
see an entirely different attitude towards illness, in what- 
ever form it makes its appearance. And, moreover, 
when we learn that the pleasures of life, judged from the 
sensuous standpoint alone, are much greater when fol- 
lowing this simple diet, — that we enjoy more physical, 
delight in the newness and fullness of increased vitality, 
clearer brains, stronger powers in every direction, and 
no illness, lassitude, or fear of these, — surely this will 
be motive strong enough, when once conviction is se- 
cured, to induce all men and women, whatever their 
station in life, to adopt it. From the royal family to 
the most humble of her Majesty's subjects, dietetic re- 
form is the most important material truth of this wonder- 
ful age, and means the restoration of the ill to health, and 
the possibility of making health a permanent condition. 

it as the bread will absorb. By using the milk with the bread its mastica- 
tion insures insalivation. We insist that no more shall be taken than is 
thoroughly relished, and if the patient tires of it— the result of the curative 
action before mentioned — abstain from all food until the appetite is 
restored. 



CHAPTER XVIL 
THE IMMORALITY OF FLESH-EATING. 

In these days of vegetarianism and theosophy a phy- 
sician is often met with objection on the part of patients 
to a diet of flesh, which objection will usually be found 
to be based on the conviction — a growing one through- 
out civilization — that it is wrong to slaughter animals, 
and therefore wrong to use their flesh as food. What- 
ever may be the ultimate decision of humanity in regard 
to this question, at the present time it is not infrequently 
a very serious one to the physician. A patient comes to 
him much out of health, earnestly desiring to follow the 
necessary course and practice the necessary self-denial 
to gain health, and the physician is fully impressed that 
the patient's digestive apparatus and general system is in 
such condition that flesh is well-nigh indispensable in a 
dietary system that will restore the patient to health, — 
under such circumstances this question will be found of 
grave importance. 

What constitutes morality in diet ? Manifestly, 
many animals are intended by nature to live upon other 
animals. To our apprehension the intention of nature, 
when it can be ascertained, authoritatively disposes of 
this matter. If it could be shown, as many physicians 
believe, that man is by nature omnivorous, and designed 
to eat flesh among other foods, this would be a conclu- 
sive demonstration that it was right for him to eat flesh. 
If, as we believe, nature intended man should subsist 
upon sweet fruits and nuts, there is not only no license 
for flesh-eating, but the reverse, — there is presumptive 



VEGETARIAN REASONING. 179 

evidence that it is wrong to eat flesh. Physiological law 
must be the court of last resort in which to try this 
question. 

Vegetarians and others scruple at the purchase of a 
beef -steak on the ground that the money so expended 
encourages the butcher in the slaughter of the animal, 
and thereby identifies the one who expends the money 
with the slaughter. If this reason be given in earnest 
it should be binding, and its logic followed under all 
circumstances. While it is true that the purchase of a 
pound of beef identifies the purchaser with the slaughter 
of the animal, the purchase of a dozen eggs or a quart of 
milk as clearly identifies the purchaser with the slaughter 
of animals ; for the reason that the laws governing the 
production of agricultural products are such that the 
farmer cannot profitably produce milk or eggs except 
he sell for slaughter some of the cocks and male calves, 
as well as those animals that have passed the productive 
period. True, there is no particular animal slain to pro- 
duce a given quart of milk or a dozen of eggs, as there 
is in the production of a pound of beef-steak ; but the 
sin is not in the slaughter of a given animal, but in the 
slaughter of animals, and it must therefore be acknowl- 
edged that animals are as surely slaughtered for the 
production of milk and eggs as for the production of 
beef -steak. And hence, since this is a question of ethics, 
we may as well be honest while dealing with it ; and if 
an ethical student honestly refrains from the purchase 
of flesh because it identifies him with the slaughter of 
animals, there is no escaping, if he be logical and ethical, 
from the obligation to refuse also to purchase milk and 
eggs. This law applies as well to wool and leather, and 
to everything made from these materials; because, as 
before shown, agriculture is at present so conducted that 
the farmer cannot profitably produce wool and leather 
unless he sells the flesh of animals to be used as food. 



180 COMMON SENSE MUST RULE. 

Looking at the matter in this light, almost all of us 
will be found in a situation demanding compromise. If 
a delicate patient be allowed eggs, milk, and its products, 
and the patient is able to digest these foods, so far as 
physiological needs are concerned there is no serious 
difficulty in refraining from the use of flesh as food ; but 
if these ethical students hew to the line, have the cour- 
age of their convictions, accept the logic of their position, 
and refrain from the use of animal products altogether, 
there will be a breakdown very soon. There are a few 
isolated cases where individuals have lived upon bread 
and fruit to the exclusion of animal products, but such 
cases are rare, and usually end in disaster. 

We are, after all, in a practical world, and must bring 
common sense to bear upon the solution of practical 
problems. The subject of the natural food of man will 
be found treated somewhat at length in Part III. In 
this chapter it is designed only to point out some of the 
difficulties that inevitably supervene upon an attempt to 
live a consistent life, and at the same time refuse to use 
flesh on the ground that such use identifies the eater 
with the slaughter of animals. There seems to us good 
ground for the belief that fruit and nuts constituted the 
food of primitive man, and are the diet intended by 
nature for him. Remember, primitive man was not en- 
gaged in the competitive strife incident to modern life ; 
the prolonged hours of labour and excessive toil that are 
necessary to success in competitive pursuits in these 
times were not incidental to that life. Undoubtedly an 
individual with robust digestive powers, who is not called 
upon to expend more vitality than is natural and health- 
ful, will have no difficulty whatever in being adequately 
nourished on raw fruits and nuts. When, however, a 
denizen of a modern city, obliged to work long hours 
and perform excessive toil, can only succeed in such 
endeavors by a diet that will give him the greatest 



CIRCUMSTANCES MAY DEMAND MEAT EATING. 181 

amount of nourishment for the least amount of digestive 
strain, it will be found that the flesh of animals usually 
constitutes a goodly portion of such diet. It may be said 
to be a pre-digested food, and one that requires the mini- 
mum expenditure of vital force for the production of 
the maximum amount of nutrition. However earnest a 
student of ethics may be, however such a student may 
desire to live an ideal life, if he finds himself so circum- 
stanced that a wife and family are dependent upon his 
exertions for a livelihood, and if it be necessary, in order 
adequately to sustain him in his work, that he shall have 
resort to a diet in which the flesh of animals is an im- 
portant factor, there is no escape, in our opinion, from 
the inevitable conclusion that it is his duty to adopt that 
diet which enables him to meet best the obligations rest- 
ing upon him. 

An invalid with no family to support, and with in- 
dependent means, may nevertheless find himself in a 
similar situation with regard to the problem of flesh- 
eating. We have found many persons whose inherited 
vitality was small at the outset, and whose course of life 
had been such as to greatly weaken the digestive powers, 
and who when they came to us were in such a state of 
prostration as to require, like the competitive worker, 
the greatest amount of nourishment for the least amount 
of digestive strain ; and yet such persons have duties 
in life to perform, and are not privileged knowingly to 
pursue any course that necessarily abbreviates their life 
or diminishes their usefulness. The conviction is clear 
to us that the plain duty of persons so circumstanced is to 
use that diet which will best contribute to a restoration 
of their digestive powers and the development of a fair 
share of vital energy. When this result has been 
reached, these persons may easily be able to dispense 
with flesh food and even animal products, and to obtain 
satisfactory results from a diet of fruit and nuts. 



i32 HEALTH THE FIRST REQUISITE. 

A true physician must make every effort to overcome 
the illness of his patients, and to put them on the road 
to a recovery of health. To our mind there is, in the 
solution of this problem, a clear path for the ethical 
student to follow. We believe that health is man's 
birthright, and that it becomes his bounden duty to use 
all efforts within his power to obtain and maintain it. 
We believe that sickness is a sin; that it unfits the 
victim for his duties in life ; that through illness our life 
becomes a misery to ourselves, and a burden to our fel- 
lows ; and where this result is voluntarily incurred it be- 
comes a shame and a disgrace. Manifestly the body is 
intended for the use of the spirit, and its value depends 
upon its adaptability for such use. In the ratio that the 
body is liable to be invaded by disease is its usefulness 
impaired. The old saying, ' ' a sound mind in a sound 
body," is the outcome of a perception of this truth. 
The saying that cleanliness is next to godliness is based 
upon the perception that cleanliness is necessary for the 
health of the body, and that the health of the body is 
necessary for the due expression of a godly life. When 
this truth is adequately understood it will be seen by the 
vegetarian, the theosophist, and the ethical student that 
health is the first requisite ; that it becomes a religious 
duty to create and conserve this condition, and that 
whatever diet, exercise, vocation, or course in life is cal- 
culated to develop the greatest degree of health is the 
one that our highest duty commands us to follow. In 
short, the favorite maxim of one of Britain's most famous 
statesmen might wisely be taken for the guiding prin- 
ciple of all : Sanitas omnia sanitas. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE VALUE OF DRUGS IN THE TREATMENT OF 

DISEASE. 

One of the most unfortunate limitations of hygienists 
and physicians of the reform school is their fanaticism 
concerning the use of drug remedies. They stoutly 
maintain that drugs are valueless at all times and on all 
occasions. The enthusiastic work and brilliant writings 
of T. R. Trail, M. D., an American physician, are largely 
responsible for this extreme view. Dr. Trail began 
practice about 1845, an ^ died in 1877. That this doc- 
trine should have made headway is not strange when one 
considers the enormous abuses brought about by the 
wholesale administration of drugs by the orthodox medi- 
cal profession ; and when we further consider the heal- 
ing power of nature, and the fact that the human organ- 
ism is a self-regulating machine, and that a majority of 
patients have only to be let alone to recover from attacks 
of illness, it is not difficult to understand that Dr. Trail 
in the heat of his enthusiasm and elated by his discovery 
should have gone to the opposite extreme. But, after a 
score of years have elapsed, that such an able writer as 
the distinguished American hygienist, Felix Oswald, 
M.D., should be blinded to facts is to be deplored. The 
effect of Dr. Trail's propaganda is plainly seen among 
the vegetarians in England. A prominent vegetarian 
physician has the following notice at the head of his 
weekly advertisement : ' ' Strictly avoid all drugs, medi- 



i8 4 EFFECT OF QUININE IN MALARIA. 

cines, pills, powders, lotions, gargles, inhalations, oint- 
ments, salves, etc. Do not paint with iodine, nor use 
caustic, poultices, liniments, nor splints." What are the 
facts? An antidote is simply a counter- poison. If a 
patient has swallowed a portion of acetate of lead a com- 
petent physician is aware that the administration of the 
sulphate of magnesia converts the poison into an inert 
and insoluble and therefore harmless sulphate. The 
most fanatical hygienist would recommend the adminis- 
tration of a substance which would render the most vio- 
lent poison harmless, and this is what some drugs 
accomplish. 

Fever and ague, chills and fever, are varying names 
for a very serious disease. The victim is periodically 
attacked, usually every day, or every other day, with 
severe chills, attended with great pain and suffering, 
followed by an intense fever, ending in copious perspira- 
tion, and is unfitted for ordinary duties for the remain- 
der of the day. If nothing is done to overcome this 
state of things, the patient gradually loses flesh and 
strength, and is eventually unfitted for all the duties of 
life. This disease is well known to be the result of 
taking into the system the poison of malaria. While 
quinine is administered by the old-school physician upon 
all possible occasions, and while thousands of persons 
are seriously injured by the unwise administration of 
this drug, it nevertheless is true that it is an undoubted 
antidote for malarial poison. If skillfully administered, 
a person who is obliged to reside in a malarial neighbor- 
hood, and who is not in possession of sufficient robust- 
ness and vigour to enable him to withstand the disease, 
may be enabled thereby to reside in such locality without 
danger, and to have years of comparative immunity from 
sickness, whereas without it he would be enduring a 
living death. However glibly hygienists living in north- 
ern climates exempt from malarial poisons may talk 



WARBURGH'S TINCTURE. 185 

about this matter, let them be forced to live in a tropical 
region full of malaria, and the truth of what is herein 
stated will be very effectually demonstrated. In severe 
cases, generally where the patient has been often treated 
with quinine, there comes a complication of malarial 
poisoning that quinine will not antidote. A physician in 
India has become famous by the concoction of a remedy 
that has an almost miraculous effect upon persons suffer- 
ing from this disease. The formula has been published 
to the world, and is known as Warburgh's Tincture. 

Venereal poisons have some similarity to the malarial 
in the fact that these poisons are also susceptible of drug 
treatment, and may be expelled from the system in a 
week's time by a skillful old- school physician ; whereas 
a patient who has contracted gonorrhea, in nine cases 
out of ten, when treated by a hygienic physician who 
consistently abstains from the use of drugs, will go from 
bad to worse, until in from six months' to a year's time 
there is chronic inflammation, and an almost incurable 
catarrh or gleet. 

A characteristic condition of illness, and one almost 
universally present with those seriously out of health, is 
constipation. Even if there be a daily movement there 
is still usually a lack of necessary activity of the excre- 
tory functions. The result of this is the accumulation 
within the system of foreign matter that is decomposing, 
and that has much the same deleterious effects as those 
that spring from poisons. If an old-school physician is 
summoned, he usually prescribes an opening medicine ; 
and if this cathartic shall be fortunately of a nature that 
stimulates to activity the liver and kidneys as well as the 
bowels, a wonderful improvement will be seen to take 
place. The fanatical zeal of a hygienist who turns his 
back upon all such active remedies not only prevents his 
patient from receiving much-needed relief, but tends to 
bring the profession of the hygienist into contempt. 



i85 CHRONIC SORE EYES CURED. 

A young man of our acquaintance, at one time 
resident in Pennsylvania, had suffered for years with 
ophthalmia — chronic inflammation of the eyelids and 
granulations upon the edges. This patient was an en- 
thusiastic hygienist and disciple of Dr. Trail. In the 
course of years his business called him to the city of 
New York. A retired chemist became acquainted with 
him, and told the young man that he was formerly a 
chemist ; that while in business he had suffered for years 
from a similar ophthalmia, and that he had been cured 
by a simple remedy for sale in all the chemists' shops in 
America. Our friend became interested, and was told 
by the chemist that this remedy was known as Becker's 
Eye Balsam. It appears an insignificent remedy resem- 
bling an oily paste, and a portion not larger than a pin's 
head is applied to the inner edge of the eyelid once in 
twenty-four hours. Our friend procured a small packet 
and began the treatment. Marked benefit was seen 
in twenty- four hours, and in a fortnight, although the 
scars of years of granulations were to be seen, there was 
no inflammation, and a complete cure resulted. When 
it is remembered that this young man had suffered with 
this affliction for years, it many times weakening the 
eyes so much as to prevent reading, and that he was an 
enthusiastic follower of the hygienic life, using no tea, 
coffee, wine, or spirits, the marvel of such a complete 
cure by so simple a means is readily seen. In enthusias- 
tic gratitude for the great benefit this remedy had been 
to him, he purchased it by the dozen packages and gave 
it away to any and all persons suffering with chronic 
sore eyes who would accept it. In one instance a laun- 
dress, a woman in middle life, had sore eyes of such 
severity that the water exuding from them and running 
down over the cheek had excoriated the skin, leaving 
the inflamed flesh exposed. She had been thus affected 
for many years. In a few weeks from the time of com- 



EFFECTS OF DRUGS IN RHEUMATISM. 187 

mencing the treatment this woman was also cured. 
Many other remarkable cases of cures by this simple 
remedy have been brought to our notice. 

It is not our habit to prescribe medicine often. 
Indeed, we very frequently treat patients wholly by 
hygienic means, and without the administration of any 
medicine whatever. A striking result of the adminis- 
tration of a drug remedy was forced upon our attention 
in the following circumstances. We had a patient, a 
lady who when she came to us was suffering from obes- 
ity, from chronic bronchitis, and from rheumatism. We 
prescribed the non-starch diet, and insisted upon the 
open window, frequent bathing, and our usual hygienic 
regulations. The patient began to improve from the 
first. Having followed this treatment for some two 
years, while a very considerable improvement in the 
general health had been attained, there was still consid- 
erable rheumatism yet remaining. The patient had 
swelled joints, the hands were out of shape, and the 
knees were sometimes so affected as to make going up 
and down stairs a matter of great difficulty. She was 
recommended by friends to use Phelps' Rheumatic 
Elixir, a proprietary remedy on common sale in chem- 
ists' shops in America; and without consultation with 
us decided to try it. In six weeks the swelling was out 
of the hands, and the knees were so nearly restored that 
walking up and down stairs could be accomplished with 
ease. Physiological knowledge is yet very obscure, and 
the action of remedies upon the human system is largely 
an unexplored field. While we are totally unable to 
explain the rationale of the cure of this patient, and of 
those whom we have known to try this remedy since, it 
is undoubtedly upon the same general plan that the 
presence of a dangerous poison within the system may 
be antidoted by the administration of another poison. 

Our position with regard to the matter of drug medi- 



1 88 HYGIENISTS NEED NO MEDICINE. 

cation is easily understood. It is our firm conviction 
that when people live in healthy situations, and in ac- 
cordance with the laws of hygiene, no medicines are 
needed. Furthermore, it is equally our firm conviction 
that the wholesale administration of drugs indulged in 
by the orthodox medical profession is not only not a 
benefit, but a large factor in causing much of the ill- 
ness and suffering that may be seen on every side. 
Moreover, we are of opinion, when patients are suffer- 
ing from illness, that hygienic regulations, especially 
as to diet, but also as to the open window, exercise, 
and the conservation of vital force, are the chief means 
to be relied upon in effecting a cure, and not infre- 
quently — indeed usually — the only remedies that are 
needed. At the same time it is not well to close our 
eyes to well-established facts ; and the wild talk of fanat- 
ical hygienists regarding drug medication has done and 
is doing more to bring these physicians into contempt 
(occasionally well merited) than any other cause. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SUPERSTITION CONCERNING DOCTORS. FALSE 
MEDICAL ETHICS. 

Probably no men give so muah time and service 
gratuitously to the poor as physicians. They form a 
hardworking and painstaking profession, and we are 
not forgetful of the many self-sacrificing and generous- 
hearted members who adorn it. This work, however, is 
written to impress upon the reader, if possible, the im- 
portance of a hygienic life, and the necessity of relying 
upon hygienic rules to overcome illness and maintain 
health. The entire medical profession is organized on 
a wholly different basis. Instead of relying largely 
upon nature's simple laws, all their strength and effort 
are devoted to seeking out and administering palliative 
drugs. It is confidently believed that the foregoing- 
chapters contain such plain and complete directions for 
carrying out practical methods both in acute and chronic 
illnesses that any earnest-minded person of ordinary- 
intelligence will be enabled successfully to take entire 
charge of a person attacked with illness ; or wisely to 
direct the course and conduct of the chronic invalid. 
The mistake with the medical profession, as before re- 
marked, is that instead of relying upon these simple 
measures for the restoration and perpetuation of health, 
they almost invariably resort to the administration of 
drugs ; and it seems necessary to point out some of the 
reasons why hygienists ought to refrain from calling a 
doctor in cases of illness. 



igo SURGEONS AS SUCH EXCEPTED. 

Nothing that is said in this chapter is applicable to 
surgery; and the advisability of seeking the aid of a 
surgeon in case of accident, fracture, or similar need is 
not in the slightest degree questioned. Moreover, if 
one has swallowed poison, the skilled surgeon or physi- 
cian is more apt to be acquainted both with the best 
means of ascertaining what poison has been taken and 
of knowing the most likely antidote to be administered. 
Readers are asked all the time to bear in mind that 
there exists within the system itself the only healing 
force. Just what this force is, the mystery of life, is by 
no one understood at the present time ; but enough is 
known to convince the able physician or hygienist that 
all that anyone can do to further the cure of one taken 
in illness is to give nature the freest opportunity for the 
use of her powers. As before said, because of the 
methods in which the medical profession is trained, the 
physician is quite sure not only not to adopt this simple 
plan, but feel called upon to interfere with the workings 
of nature, and is all the time causing new complications 
by his interference. Full consideration is given to the 
solicitude of the parents or friends when a child or loved 
one is taken ill ; and to send for the physician is always 
the first thought. It has been the custom for genera- 
tions, which of itself is sufficient explanation of why it is 
quite universally done. But if the reader will grasp the 
entire problem — will perceive that the physician is the 
creature of his education, and that his treatment is sure 
not only not to follow hygienic methods but to rely upon 
drugs, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred work 
no good, but considerable harm, the impropriety of call- 
ing such a force within the household is plainly seen, 
unless in exceptional cases for a diagnosis of symptoms. 
This remark is largely as applicable to the homceopathist 
as to the allopathist. True, waiving the discussion as to 
whether infinitesimal doses have any reliable effect or 



OPIUM THE MODERN DELUSION. xgi 

power for good, there is still among these physicians the 
same reliance upon drug medication, and much the same 
ignoring of the demands of hygiene and the simple 
methods of nature, as among the allopathists. More- 
over, it is to be noticed that these systems of practice are 
gradually approaching each other ; the allopathist shows 
that he is influenced by the homoeopathic profession in 
that smaller doses of remedies are given than formerly ; 
and a considerable number of the homceopathists are now 
recommending mother tinctures and substantial doses. 
Moreover, all these gentlemen use opium for the relief 
of pain ; and the use of opium is perhaps fraught with 
more danger, and is the cause of more damage to the 
great multitude of patients than any other of the colossal 
delusions, of the pharmacopoeia. Instead of assisting 
nature in its efforts to throw off disease, the powers of 
the system are paralyzed at the outset ; the patient is mo- 
mentarily relieved, or, more properly speaking, is made 
unconscious of the pain, and is lulled into the hope or 
belief that he has been benefited. But what really hap- 
pens? The seeds of disease to expel which the system 
was making an effort remain. The effects of the opium 
are added to the original disease, and are usually more 
malignant and dangerous than the trouble for which the 
opium was administered. In a short time nature again 
makes another effort, the physician (so-called) again pre- 
scribes opium, and the patient is harried into a condition 
far worse than at first. Hygienists whose attention are 
called to this subject will therefore see that to send for 
a physician is to bring into the household a force directly 
in opposition to a dependence upon hygienic methods. 

The extraordinary and undue influence which the 
medical profession have been, and still are, able to exert 
over the public is seen in other ways than the readiness 
with which one of their number is summoned to almost 
every household upon the slightest pretext. While fair- 



ig2 A MONOPOLY IN MEDICINE. 

minded men of all ranks are up in arms against special 
legislation, thinking persons will be surprised to see, 
when their attention is called to it, that the medical 
profession have been able to procure the enactment of 
special protective laws designed for the sole purpose of 
making a monopoly in their own behalf. Ostensibly 
with a view to the adequate protection of the public, 
medical societies in America have appointed special 
committees to visit cities where the various legislatures 
are in session, and have appropriated money to sustain 
these committees while engaged in lobbying through 
the legislatures laws specially designed to create a mo- 
nopoly in the practice of medicine. 

No complaint could be urged against an enactment 
providing that any and all persons shall be held answer- 
able for malpractice, and shall be subject to such fines 
and punishments as are compatible with the gravity of 
the offense. Such is not, however, the nature of this 
special legislation. Indeed, quite the contrary state of 
things exists. Upon the day of his graduation the 
writer heard Professor Thomson, occupying the chair of 
Materia Medica in the New York University Medical 
College, in his last address to the graduating class, and 
in appealing to them to properly appreciate the extent 
of their obligations, explain that a regular physician is 
substantially above the law; that no matter what the 
result of his practice may be, he is practically out of 
reach of the officers of the law, and is amenable only to 
his own conscience. An examination into the usages 
controlling this matter will show that the professor's 
ground was well taken. The question, when there has 
been incompetent medical treatment, is not whether the 
person accused has been guilty of malpractice, but 
whether he is a regular graduate, and is a member of 
the privileged and monopolist class. If these laws 
were really enacted to protect the people, the only 



MEDICAL ETHICS SCREEN THE GUILTY. 193 

effective method of obtaining this result is to enact a 
statute against malpractice, and define the penalties 
that shall be operative against any person who may be 
found guilty. Practically, and in point of fact, if a 
practitioner holds a diploma from a public college, is 
regularly registered, and has not made himself objection- 
able to members of his profession, it is a part of medical 
ethics that no fellow physician shall testify against him. 
It will be found that the act entitled ' ' The Regulation 
of the Practice of Medicine," which the committee ap- 
pointed by the New York Medical Society succeeded in 
lobbying through the legislature at Albany, is really 
class legislation of the most corrupt kind, since, by 
virtue of its action, what is called a qualified practitioner 
may commit malpractice to almost any extent and be 
free from the danger of any indictment; whereas a 
physician not having obtained a diploma from the 
privileged school is liable to imprisonment for simply 
advertising and attempting to benefit a neighbour. 

This law which has been enacted into a statute in the 
State of New York has become the model for the larger 
number of the other states of the American Union ; and 
in all these instances the same methods were employed. 
In the State of Illinois a similar bill was lobbied through 
the legislature at Springfield by the committee appointed 
and supported by the medical society at Chicago. The 
falseness of the claim that this legislation was procured 
for the greater precaution of the people, as before said, 
is seen in the fact that no provision whatever is contem- 
plated for the prevention or punishment of malpractice, 
whereas every possible precaution has been taken to see 
that a monopoly of medical practice is kept within the 
ranks of the orthodox physicians. 

The extraordinary length to which these medical 
monopolists are willing to go is well illustrated by their 
conduct in regard to what is known as the Mind Cure, 



ig 4 MENTAL HEALING, OR MIND CURE, 

or mental treatment. Mrs. Eddy, of Boston, instituted 
this system some fifteen years since, calling it Christian 
Healing. Cures were accomplished without the admin- 
istration of any medicine, or the adoption of any special 
hygienic rules or exercises. During the last half-dozen 
years this system of practice spread with such rapidity 
through the United States as seriously to interfere with 
the practice of the regular doctors ; and there has been 
before the legislature of the State of New York for 
several sessions an amendment to the medical bill so 
worded as to prevent, in the event of its enactment, 
these Christian healers from practicing, manifestly be- 
cause the incomes of the orthodox doctors have been 
interfered with by the cures that these physicians have 
iccomplished. 

These venal and special legislative enactments are 
not the only manifestation of the subtle power wielded 
by the medical profession. They have enacted a code 
of what they consider constitutes medical ethics. An- 
other title may be found far more appropriate for these 
provisions. Instead of being denominated "Medical 
Ethics" they should be termed "Provisions for the 
Adequate Protection of Orthodox Practitioners." As a 
case in point, let the well-known rule formulated by 
medical ethics in regard to the propriety of a physician 
being permitted to advertise be scrutinized. Since med- 
icine is not a science, and since there are no well-defined 
means known to the regular physician whereby patients 
suffering from illness are at all sure to be benefited, if 
a man like Priessnitz shall discover a curative agent that 
is, by virtue of its conformity to physiologic law, to 
be depended upon, it is quite natural for such a dis- 
coverer to desire to announce to the public the nature of 
his discovery, to the end that the public may be bene- 
fited and a business established. For the proper pro- 
tection of the orthodox physician, however, something 



THE QUESTION OF ADVERTISING, 195 

must be contrived to prevent this irregular physician 
from making his superior methods known. Hence has 
arisen that provision of medical ethics upon which such 
tremendous stress is laid, namely, the great immorality 
on the part of a physician of advertising. 

While in attendance upon medical lectures the writer 
asked several of his fellow students to throw some light 
on this question. Harvard College has a medical de- 
partment, and a portion of its graduates obtain a degree 
in medicine, others the usual degree in arts. The ques- 
tion was propounded : Since a graduate of the classical 
department is entirely at liberty, having obtained his 
degree and decided upon what city or town he will make 
his home, to announce to the citizens by advertisement 
in the public press, or by distribution of circulars, what 
his qualifications are — that he is a graduate of Harvard 
University, and that he has decided to open a school for 
preparing young men for college, and asks the patron- 
age of his fellow citizens, — since this advertisement is 
in no way a violation of ethics, or morals, or good taste 
even, why is it that a medical graduate of the same col- 
lege, settling in the same town, would be committing an 
unpardonable offense by making a similar announce- 
ment to his fellow citizens ? Not one of the several stu- 
dents to whom this question was put was able to make 
any reply. The simple truth is that the assertion that 
laws for the regulation of the practice of medicine are 
made for the protection of the people is false ; it is done 
simply for the more complete protection of a monopolist 
class; and the code, written or unwritten, of modern 
medical ethics has precisely the same origin. It is easily 
understood upon his basis ; and, placed upon its correct 
footing, any man of intelligence can see that the system 
of medical ethics, so far as advertising is concerned, is 
simply another contrivance for the protection of the 
orthodox physician. 



ig6 THE KEELEY CURE FOR DRUNKENNESS. 

The question of the propriety or taste of any or all 
advertising is not here discussed. It is enough to note 
that the transactions of modern life are based upon it ; 
that if it is thought best to undertake to lay an Atlantic 
cable, or to construct an African railway, there is no 
question of ethics to prevent these schemes being prop- 
erly advertised, or even to prevent a properly qualified 
person from advertising that he has opened an academy 
and solicits the patronage of parents; and the only 
foundation for the widespread idea that it is immoral 
for a physician to advertise is the organized effort of 
the medical profession to insure a monopoly of medical 
practice. The wonderfully far-reaching and most subtle 
influence of this thoroughly organized effort is seen in 
the fact that a majority of the intelligent men and 
women in modern life take it for granted that an 
advertising physician is a moral leper. The matter is 
given no thought. It has been subtly instilled as a 
creed into our minds. To a thoughtful person the extent 
to which our opinions are given us ready-made is most 
astonishing. A flock of sheep are well known to follow 
in the course marked out by the leader, and in the mat- 
ter of medical ethics the medical profession, by their or- 
ganized efforts and skillful fulminations, are the leaders, 
and the bulk of mankind are the sheep-like followers. 

Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, of Dwight, Illinois, began some 
twelve or fifteen years since a special practice for the 
cure of inebriety. He claims that drunkenness is a dis- 
ease, and is as subject to medical treatment as any other. 
Dr. Keeley committed the unpardonable sin of advertis- 
ing his remedy, and soliciting patients through such 
advertisements. He has cured thousands of confirmed 
drunkards whose condition was in many cases worse 
than death, but who are now filling the role of useful 
and respected citizens. Some three years since the 
Chicago Tribune instituted an investigation into the 



MADAME DEL CIN. 197 

merits of the Keeley treatment by sending a half-dozen 
drunkards to Dwight to be treated ; and when these un- 
fortunate persons returned home cured the Tribune began 
the publication of the successes of the method. This was 
followed by similar publications in the daily press of 
New York and the principal cities of the Union. At 
the beginning of 1892, Dr. Keeley claimed to have 
treated over 50,000 patients, with less than five per cent, 
of failures or of relapses into drunkenness. These ex- 
traordinary successes on the part of a physician who had 
the temerity to advertise his discovery irritated the doc- 
tors of Illinois to such an extent that they succeeded in 
getting Dr. Keeley's name removed from the register. 
But Dr. Keeley had made such wonderful cures, and in 
many instances of persons highly connected, that there 
were many persons of influence and standing ready to 
take his part and come to his protection, and the Gov- 
ernor of Illinois was induced to interfere with the deci- 
sion of the County Medical Society, and forced them to 
revoke their action in regard to Dr. Keeley. 

This injustice and bigotry is not confined to America. 
In Vienna a woman by the name of Madame del Cin, a 
natural bone-setter, became famous for extraordinary 
feats in surgery which she performed. She succeeded 
in what is technically known as reduction of the femur — 
successfully set dislocated hip- joints, — where many sur- 
geons of the regular school declared the patients beyond 
help. No sooner did this lady's success threaten the 
pockets of the doctors than they procured her indictment, 
and had her cast into prison. Fortunately for her, she had 
treated some members of the aristocratic and influential 
classes, who appealed to the Emperor, and she was given 
an honorary diploma which carried with it the right to 
practice medicine. Madame del Cin's cures became so 
famous that people came to her from all parts of the 
world. Some gentlemen from America were so signally 



198 MEDICAL TYRANNY. 

benefited by her skill that they prevailed upon her to re- 
move to the States, and she settled in Brooklyn with a 
view to continuing her practice. As soon as it became 
known to the profession, a committee appointed and 
supported by the County Medical Society had her indicted, 
and she was obliged to return to Vienna. As an evidence 
that these physicians who opposed Madame del Cin were 
not moved from any solicitude for the people, but for 
fear that some of their own practice would be wrested 
from them, we refer readers to the following quotation 
from a letter written to the Echo, and published June 
9th, 1892, by a physician who wrote to defend doctors 
against the charge of narrowness and trades unionism : 

' ' If Dr. Densmore would recall Sir Astley Cooper's 
famous work ' On Fractures and Dislocations ' he would 
find that the bone-setters of the last age were by no 
means treated with contempt. On the contrary, the 
success with which Sir Astley credits them is held up as 
proof of the incompetence of some of the less sagacious 
of the surgeons of those days ; and so impressed was one 
English surgeon with the idea that by natural wit and 
hereditary skill these people had accomplished what well 
educated physicians had failed to do that he devoted 
much time to the study of their methods and wrote a 
book on the same."* 

In this instance we have the testimony of Sir Astley 
Cooper and other physicians that the natural bone-setters 
of England were in many instances more skillful than 
their contemporary educated surgeons ; and it is incon- 
testable that Madame del Cin succeeded in many cases 

* "During the reign of Henry VIII., Parliament undertook by statute to 
limit the practice of the healing art in England to 'those persons that be 
profound, sad, and discreet, groundly learned, and deeply studied in 
physic,' and practitioners were 'to be licensed by the Bishop of London or 
the Dean of St. Pauls.' But in 1543 the previous act was modified so as to 
permit 'divers honest persons, as well men as women, whom God hath 
endowed with the knowledge of the nature, kind and operation of certain 
herbs, roots and waters,' to prescribe for and treat certain dangerous afflic- 
tions there mentioned." — Knight's History of England, Volume II., p. 498. 



MEDICAL TYRANNY IN ENGLAND, 199 

in the reduction of the dislocation of the hip- joint where 
all orthodox physicians who were consulted had pro- 
nounced it impossible. These facts are a plain demon- 
stration that the opposition of these physicians to 
Madame del Cin and to other physicians who are not in 
possession of a diploma from an orthodox college is not 
because of fear that they will commit malpractice, but 
for fear that they will get an undue share of the people's 
patronage. 

This subtle power of organized physicians is not less 
felt in England than elsewhere. Here no physician is 
allowed to sign a death certificate unless he is a regular 
graduate, and has his name still on the register as such. 
The plain result of this provision is to force every house- 
holder, however liberal and progressive he may be, to 
employ an orthodox doctor in all cases of serious illness, 
for the simple reason that if he should rest content with 
a physician outside the regular ranks, in whom he has 
the greatest confidence, and the patient should die, he 
would have to face a coroner's inquest, and run the risk 
of prosecution. It is easy to see how this most unwise 
and unjust measure is class legislation of the worst type, 
and admirably contrived to protect the orthodox medical 
profession. 

A few years ago Edwin W. Alabone, M.D., an able 
and conscientious physician, confident that he had dis- 
covered a most valuable method for the relief of con- 
sumption, in vain solicited the hospitals of London to 
give him an opportunity for demonstrating the efficacy 
of his discovery. This physician had his name erased 
from the medical register for simply publishing a book 
dealing with matters well known to medical men, and 
one of the chief grounds of complaint against Dr. Ala- 
bone was that this book was written in popular language, 
and sold at a low price. Quite recently Dr. T. R. 
Allinson, who has for years been teaching the impor- 



2oo DR. ALA BONE'S PERSECUTION. 

tance of proper ventilation, bathing, and a simple diet 
in the columns of the Weekly Times and Echo, was struck 
off the register on the ground that he had been adver- 
tising ; and it appeared at the trial that his chief offense 
was that he had conducted for some years the medical 
columns in the aforesaid journal — in plain truth, had 
taught the people hygienic laws. Still another instance 
occurred in the attack upon the author of ' ' The Wife's 
Handbook" (H. A. Allbutt, M.R.C.P.E., L.S.A., Lon- 
don) a few years ago. This work, sold at a very low 
price, put within the reach of every woman certain in- 
formation and instructions which vitally concern not 
only themselves as individuals, but the welfare of a 
nation in which an unrestricted birth-rate among its 
poor means an ever- widening area of poverty and mis- 
ery. The book was never impugned in any court of 
law; it was warmly commended by clergymen, philan- 
thropists, and the press as well calculated to be a boon 
to the working classes ; yet these are the words of its 
author in an appeal for fair play made to the public in 
November, 1887: 

' ' For the past ten months I have been persecuted, 
firstly by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 
and secondly by the General Medical Council of Great 
Britain. The attack made by the college came to noth- 
ing, as much public opinion was brought to bear in my 
favor on the Fellows of the College. The attack made 
by the General Medical Council, sitting at 299 Oxford 
Street, London, terminated on November 25th, and I 
had the sentence passed upon me by the Council (who 
voted in secret) that my name be erased from the Medi- 
cal Register, and that I be ' judged guilty of infamous 
conduct in a professional respect for having published 
and publicly sold "The Wife's Handbook" at too low a 
price. 

Perhaps the strongest testimony as to the impotency 
of physicians, the uselessness of their efforts, and harm- 



DR. PYE SMITH ON DOCTORS. 201 

fulness of their methods, has been given by physicians 
themselves. The following quotation is taken from the 
letter referred to above, in the Echo of June 9th, 1892 : 

' ' Among the leading medical men in London is one 
who is a fellow of the College of Physicians and of 
the Royal Society, M.D., and physician to one of the 
largest hospitals in London. In the very popular book 
on medicine of which he is editor, he has laid down at 
the bottom of the very first page that 'all systems of 
medicine . . . are of necessity false. Allopathy 
and homoeopathy are equally unreasonable, not wrong 
solutions of a scientific problem, but ignorant answers 
to an absurd question.' " 

This quotation is taken from "The Principles and 
Practice of Medicine," by Charles H. Fagge, M. D., 
edited by Dr. Pye Smith, page 2, 3d edition, 1891. 

By the following quotations from the sayings of cele- 
brated physicians it will be seen that in many instances 
we are able to cite the work and page from which the 
quotation is taken. Not infrequently many of the 
strongest testimonies to the universal inefhciencv of 
physicians are found in the addresses of physicians to 
their classes on public occasions. These utterances, not 
occurring in the more conservative works of the same 
authors, and published only in the daily press of the 
period, are not so readily identified. 

Bichat, the great French pathologist, in his " General 
Anatomy," Vol. I, page 17, says: 

1 ' Medicine is an incoherent assemblage of incoherent 
ideas, and is perhaps of all the physiological sciences 
that which best shows the caprice of the human mind. 
What did I say ? It is not a science for a methodical 
mind. It is a shapeless assemblage of inaccurate ideas, 
of observations often puerile, and of formulae as fan- 
tastically conceived as they are tediously arranged." 

11 Dr. Stille ( ' Therapeutics,' Vol. I., page 31 ) says: 
' Nearly every medicine has become a popular remedy 



202 SIR JOHN FORBES' TESTIMONY. 

before being adopted or even tried by physicians ; and 
by far the greater number of medicines were first em- 
ployed in countries which were and are now in a state 
of scientific ignorance ; ' and Pereira declares that nux 
vomica is one of the few remedies the discovery of which 
is not the effect of chance." — Beard and Rockwell on 
" Medical and Surgical Electricity, " page no. 

Sir John Forbes, Fellow of the Royal College of Phy- 
sicians, and Physician to the Queen's household, says : 

' ' No systematic or theoretical classification of dis- 
eases or therapeutic agents ever yet promulgated is true 
or anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as 
a safe guidance in practice. 

' ' With the exception of a very few, and those com- 
paratively insignificant diseases, the medical art does 
not possess the power of curing diseases in a direct and 
positive manner. In the very few diseases in which it 
may be said to do so, speaking generally, it not seldom 
fails to do so in individual instances, so that such cases 
require to be transferred to other categories of thera- 
peutic action." — "Of Nature and Art in the Cure of 
Disease," by Sir John Forbes, page 256. 

Dr. Eliphalet Kimball, of New Hampshire, was a 
diplomated doctor of the regular school. In his 
"Thoughts on Natural Principles," on page 7 he re- 
marks : 

1 ' There is a doctorcraft as well as a priestcraft. . . 
Physicians have slain more than war. As instruments 
of death in their hands, bleeding, calomel, and other 
medicines have done more than powder and ball. 
The public would be infinitely better off without pro- 
fessed physicians. In weak constitutions nature can be 
assisted. Good nursing is necessary, and sometimes 
roots and herbs do good. In strong constitutions medi- 
cine is seldom needed in sickness. To a man with a 
good constitution, and guided by reason in his course 
of living, sickness would be impossible. He could defer 
death until the natural time. By the use of reason in 
food I passed unharmed through the great cholera in 

\ 



FROM DR. KIMBALL AND OTHERS. 203 

New York in 1832. I was nearly two months in a chol- 
era hospital, engaged with the sick, day and night. The 
medical practice provided and paid for by the city was 
nonsense and an injury to the sick." 

On page 8 of the same work Dr. Kimball continues 
as follows : 

' ' Immense numbers of children in canker-rash have 
been killed by the ' regulars, ' or scientific doctors, of 
whom I am one. The practice of many of them has 
been to give a powerful cathartic and calomel at first. 
The consequence is the rash cannot come out, the child 
sinks away and dies. In many of the country towns as 
many as sixty children have died of canker- rash in one 
winter, and nearly all of them undoubtedly from medi- 
cine given them by physicians. It is shocking to think 
how many soldiers in the late war were killed or their 
constitutions ruined by army doctors. The irrational use 
of medicine by physicians sweeps off the people as fast 
as war could. It has a serious effect upon the census. 
. Confidence in nature is the all-important prin- 
ciple, not only in disease, but in social welfare as affected 
by government. Artificial law causes the diseases of 
society, and has made the world a bad one." 

Dr. Munro, of Hull, M.D., F.R.S., delivered a speech 
at Exeter Hall, January 13th, 1872, on " Fashions in 
Medicine," from which the following is quoted: 

" Forty years ago we used to bleed everyone. Blue 
pill at night and a black draft in the morning. Then 
the question was asked : Have you any pain anywhere ? 
And woe to the patient if he said or thought he had." 

Sir Thomas Watson, lecturing on " Practical Physic," 
Vol. I., page 247, 5th Ed., 1877, says: 

"Yes, I remember the time when a surgeon, seeing 
a man in a fit, if he did not at once open a vein would 
be abused by the bystanders. To do so nowadays would 
be to incur the charge of murder. " 

Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Physician to Her 



204 £>fiS- RICHARDSON AND GA1RDNER. 

Majesty's household, says in his charge against the med- 
ical faculty : 

"What a difference of opinion. What an array of 
alleged facts directly at variance with each other. What 
contradictions. What opposite results of a like experi- 
ence. What ups and downs. What glorification and 
degradation of the same remedy. . . . What horror 
and intolerance of the very same opinion and practices 
which, previously and subsequently, were cherished and 
admired. Things have got to such a pitch they cannot 
be worse. They must end or mend." — Medical Journal, 
October 5th, 1861. 

The Medico-Chirurgical Review, January, 1861, gives 
voice as follows : 

* ' Would that some physician of mature experience 
had opened the academical year by a grave, unsparing 
exposition of the practices now in vogue of poisoning 
the sick with food, and maddening the brain by beer, 
wine and brandy without stint . . . dismissing the 
patients drunken from the world ... an equivalent 
of slaughter for thousands who were then bled, purged, 
and starved to death. In this balance of destruction, 
the result is of small value to the statistician ; but to the 
physician it is a double shame." 

B. W. Richardson M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F. 
R.C.P., says: 

1 1 All the learned professions are bordering on a state 
of discontinuity. Men and women of all classes are 
beginning to know and think for themselves without the 
aid of any professional adviser ; and extremely 

critical and inquisitive when the fruits of the advice are 
declared; threatening to uproot everything before it, 
and to establish a new face of destiny." 

Professor Gairdner, of Glasgow, physician to the 
Royal Infirmary there, says : 

' ' One hundred and eighty-nine unselected cases 
treated without alcohol . . . and these would have 
had a death rate of from 30 to 35 per cent if they had 



PROFESSOR CLARK AND DR. RAM AGE, F.R.C.S. 205 

been treated with alcohol, had only a death rate of less 
than one per cent." 

Professor Gairdner was not an abstainer. 

Dr. Whitmore confesses : 

" I am not a total abstainer, but I have been as- 
tounded with regard to the results of the treatment of 
smallpox with and without alcohol. Following the or- 
thodox line of the schools, brandy, wine, &c, were ad- 
ministered freely. I became anxious in reporting the 
state of things to the vestry. Brandy, &c, in the 
earlier cases of confluent hemmorrhagic and malignant 
form, administered freely, had no apparent benefit. 
Treated entirely without alcohol, and substituting milk, 
eggs and beef tea, the result was immediately satisfac- 
tory ; the rate of mortality decreased, and very bad cases 
did well, which under brandy, &c, would have, accord- 
ing to previous experience, terminated fatally ; and im- 
mediately after stimulants were given up." — Medical 
Temperance Journal, 1 8 79. 

Professor Alonzo Clark, of the New York College of 
Physicians and Surgeons, says : 

* ' In their zeal to do good, physicians have done 
much harm. They have hurried thousands to the grave 
who would have recovered if left to nature." 

Dr. Ramage, F.R.C.S., London, says: 

" It cannot be denied that the present system of 
medicine is a burning reproach to its profession — if, in- 
deed, a series of vague and uncertain incongruities de- 
serves to be called by that name. How rarely do our 
medicines do good! How often do they make our 
patients really worse ! I fearlessly assert that in most 
cases the sufferer would be safer without a physician 
than with one. I have seen enough of the malprac- 
tice of my professional brethren to warrant the strong 
language I employ." 

Sir John Forbes says : 

" Some patients get well with the aid of medicines, 
some without, and still more in spite of it." 



206 FROM JAMES JOHNSON, M.D., F.R.S. 

Prof. Barker, New York Medical College, says : 

* ' The drugs which are administered for scarlet fever 
kill far more patients than that disease does." 

John Mason Good, M.D., F.R.S., says: 

* ' The effects of medicine on the human system are 
in the highest degree uncertain, except, indeed, that 
they have destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, 
and famine combined." 

Dr. Broady, of Chicago, in his " Medical Practice 
without Poisons," says: 

"The single, un combined, different and confessed 
poisons in daily use by the dominant school of medicine 
number one hundred and seven. Among these are 
phosphorus, strychnine, mercury, opium, and arsenic. 
The various combinations of these five violent poisons 
number, respectively, twenty-seven combinations of 
phosphorus, five of strichnia, forty-seven of mercury, 
twenty-five of opium, and fourteen of arsenic. The 
poisons that are more or less often used number many 
hundreds." 

" I declare, as my conscientious conviction, founded 
on long experience and reflection, that if there was not a 
single physician, surgeon, man-midwife, chemist, apothe- 
cary, druggist, nor drug on the face of the earth, there 
would be less sickness and less mortality than now pre- 
vails." — James Johnson, M.D., F.R.S., editor of The 
Medico- Chirurgical Review. 

Dr. Adam Smith says : 

' ' After denouncing Paracelsus as a quack, the regu- 
lar medical profession stole his ' quack-silver ' — mercury ; 
after calling Jenner an impostor it adopted his discov- 
ery of vaccination ; after dubbing Harvey a humbug it 
was forced to swallow his theory of the circulation of the 
blood." 

Dr. A. O'Leary, Jefferson Medical College, Philadel- 
phia, says: 

* ' The best things in the healing art have been done • 
by those who never had a diploma — the first Caesarian / 



DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 207 

section, lithotomy, the use of cinchona, of ether as an 
anaesthetic, the treatment of the air passages by inhala- 
tion, the water cure, and medicated baths, electricity as 
a healing agent, and magnetism, faith cure, mind cure, 
etc. Pasteur has no diploma, but has done more good 
than all the M.D.'s in France." 

Prof. J. Rhodes Buchanan, Boston, says: 

1 ' Mozart, Hoffman, Ole Bull, and Blind Tom were 
born with a mastery of music, as Zerah Colburn with a 
mastery of mathematics, as others are born with a mas- 
tery of the mystery of life and disease ; like Greatrakes, 
Newton, Hutton, Sweet, and Stephens, born doctors, 
and a score of similar renown.'* 

Sir John Forbes is thus quoted in the British and 
For sign Medical Review, 1 846 : 

"Ina large proportion of cases treated by allopathic 
physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by 
them. For a less, but not a small proportion the dis- 
ease is cured by nature in spite of them. In other 
words, their interference opposes instead of assists the 
case. Consequently, in a considerable proportion of 
diseases it would fare as well or better with patients, 
in the actual condition of the medical art as now gener- 
ally practiced, if all remedies, at least active remedies, 
especially drugs, were abandoned." 

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the well-known author, 
and a professor of anatomy in the Harvard University, 
in his " Border Lines of Knowledge " says: 

* ' The disgrace of medicine has been that colossal 
system of self-deception, in obedience to which mines 
have been emptied of their cankering minerals, the en- 
trails of animals taken for their impurities, the poison 
bags of reptiles drained of their venom, and all the 
inconceivable absurdities thus obtained thrust down the 
throats of human beings suffering from some want of 
organization, nourishment or vital stimulation." 

And again : 

" If all drugs were cast into the sea, it would be so 



2o3 DR. SAMUEL WILKS—THE FAMOUS MAJENDIE. 

much, the better for man, and so much the worse for tne 
fishes." 

Dr. Quain, editor of the "Dictionary of Medicine," 
said in an address to the British Medical Association in 
1873: 

" Alas, our means of curing disease do not make 
equally rapid progress. This is not, as some assert, be- 
cause disease cannot be cured, it is simply because our 
knowledge of remedies is deficient. In other words, 
diseases are curable, but we cannot cure them." 

Dr. Samuel Wilks, F.R.C.S., lecturer on medicine at 
Guy's Hospital, in February, 1871, told his class plainly 
that the method which he had to teach them was un- 
scientific. His words are : 

"All our best treatment is empirical. ... I 
should have preferred to have offered you some princi- 
ples based on true scientific grounds, and on which you 
could act in particular cases. ... At the present 
day this cannot be done, nor is it wise to speak of prin- 
ciples when framed from conclusions whose premises 
are altogether false. To say that I have no principles 
is a humiliating confession. . . . For my own part 
I believe that we know next to nothing of the action of 
medicines and other therapeutic agents. . . . There 
was a time when I scarcely dared to confess these opin- 
ions to myself, and this is the first occasion in which I 
have been bold enough to assert them before my class." 
— Lancet, February, 1871. 

The following from the celebrated physician and 
physiologist Majendie, given while lecturing to his 
class, and published in the press at the time, is one of 
frankest of these confessions : 

1 ' Let us no longer wonder at the lamentable want of 
success which marks our practice, when there is scarcely 
a sound physiological principle among us. I hesitate 
not to declare, no matter how sorely I should wound our 
vanity, that so gross is our ignorance of the real nature of 
the physiological disorder called disease, that it would 



THE INDICTMENT COMPIETED. 209 

perhaps be better to do nothing, and resign the com- 
plaint into the hands of nature, than to act as we are 
frequently compelled to do, without knowing the why 
and the wherefore of our conduct, at the obvious risk of 
hastening the end of the patient. Gentlemen, medicine is 
a great humbug. I know it is called science. Science, 
indeed ! It is nothing like science. Doctors are merely 
empirics when they are not charlatans. We are as 
ignorant as men can be. Who knows anything in the 
world about medicine ? Gentlemen, you have done 
me an honor to come here to attend my lectures, and 
I must tell you frankly now, in the beginning, that I 
know nothing in the world about medicine, and I don't 
know anybody who does know anything about it. . . 
I repeat it, nobody knows anything about medicine. 
. . . We are collecting facts in the right spirit, and 
I dare say, in a century or so, the accumulation of facts 
may enable our successors to form a medical science. 
Who can tell me how to cure the headache, or the gout, 
or disease of the heart ? Nobody. Oh, you tell me the 
doctors cure people. I grant you people are cured, but 
how are they cured ? Gentlemen, nature does a great 
deal ; imagination a great deal ; doctors — devilish little 
when they don't do any harm. Let me tell you, gentle- 
men, what I did when I was a physician at the Hotel 
Dieu. Some three or four thousand patients passed 
through my hands every year. I divided the patients 
into classes: with one I followed the dispensary and 
gave the usual medicines, without having the least idea 
why or wherefore ; to the others I gave bread pills and 
colored water, without of course, letting them know any- 
thing about it ; and occasionally I would create a third 
division, to whom I gave nothing whatever. These last 
would fret a great deal ; they felt that they were neglect- 
ed: sick people always feel neglected, unless they are 
well drugged, "les imbeciles," and they would irritate 
themselves until they got really sick, but nature always 
came to the rescue, and all the third class got well. There 
was but little mortality among those who received the 
bread pills and colored water, but the mortality was 
greatest among those drugged according to the dispensary." 



CHAPTER XX. 

DINNERS AND DINING. 

Space is given for the following quite extended quo- 
tations from Sir Henry Thompson's book entitled ' ' Food 
and Feeding"* for the reason, among others, that Sir 
Henry is more liberal on the question of diet than the 
average of his profession ; and because by virtue of his 
position his words may be taken to be somewhat 
authoritative as to what constitutes the dining habits of 
the so-called upper classes. Chapter IX. commences as 
follows : 

" And of this entertainment, the dinner of invitation, 
there are two very distinct kinds. First, there is the 
little dinner of six or eight guests, carefully selected for 
their own specific qualities, and combined with judgment 
to obtain an harmonious and successful result. The in- 
gredients of a small party, like the ingredients of a dish, 
must be well chosen to make it complete. Such are the 
first conditions to be attained in order to achieve the 
highest perfection in dining. Secondly, there is the 
dinner of society, which is necessarily large ; the number 
of guests varying from twelve to twenty -four. 

' ' The characteristics of the first dinner are : comfort, 
excellence, simplicity, and good taste. Those of the 
second are : the conventional standard of quality, some 
profusion of supply, suitable display in ornament and 
service. 

" It must be admitted that with the large circle of 
acquaintances so commonly regarded as essential to exist- 
ence in modern life, large dinners only enable us to pay 
our dining debts, and exercise the hospitality which posi- 
tion demands. With a strong preference, then, for the 

* Sixth Edition. F. Warne & Co., London. 1891. 



FASHIONABLE LARGE DINNER. 211 

little dinners, it must be admitted that the larger banquet 
is a necessary institution (?), and therefore we have only 
to consider how to make the best of it. 

' ' No doubt the large dinner has greatly improved of 
late ; but it has by no means universally arrived at per- 
fection. Only a few years ago excellence in quality and 
good taste in cuisine were often sacrificed in the en- 
deavor to make a profuse display. Hence abundance 
without reason, and combinations without judgment, 
were found co-existing with complete indifference to 
comforts in the matters of draughts, ventilation, tempera- 
ture, and consumption of time. Who among the diners- 
out of middle age has not encountered many a time an 
entertainment with some such programme as the follow- 
ing — one of an order which, it is to be feared, is not 
even yet quite extinct? 

1 l Eighteen or twenty guests enter a room adapted at 
most to a dinner of twelve. It is lighted with gas ; the 
chief available space being occupied by the table, sur- 
rounding which is a narrow lane barely sufficing for the 
circulation of the servants. Directly — perhaps after 
oysters — appear turtle soups thick and clear. A con- 
somme is to be had on demand, but so unexpected a 
choice astonishes the servitor, who brings it after some 
delay, and cold ; with it punch. Following arrive the 
fish — salmon and turbot, one or both, smothered in thick 
lobster sauce ; sherry. Four entrees promenade the cir- 
cuit in single file, whereof the first was always oyster 
patties, after which came mutton or lamb cutlets, a vol- 
au-vent, etc., hock and champagne. Three-quarters of 
an hour at least, perhaps an hour, having now elapsed, 
the saddle or haunch of mutton arrives, of which gentle- 
men who have patiently waited get satisfactory slices, 
and currant jelly, with cold vegetables or a heavy, flabby 
salad. Then come boiled fowl and tongue, or a turkey 
with solid force meat, a slice of ham, and so on, up to 
game, followed by hot, substantial pudding, three or four 
other sweets, including an iced pudding ; wines in variety 
more or less appropriate, to be followed by a pate de foie 
gras, more salad, biscuits and cheese. Again two ices 
and liqueurs. Then an array of decanters, and the first 



212 SELECT PRIVATE DINNER. 

appearance of red wine ; a prodigious dessert of all things 
in and out of season, and particularly those which are 
out of season, as being the more costly. General circu- 
lation of waiters, handing each dish in turn to every- 
body, under a running fire of negatives, a ceremonial of 
fifteen minutes' duration, to say the least. Circulation 
of decanters, general rustle of silks, disappearance of 
the ladies ; and first change of seat precisely two and a 
half hours after taking it. It may be hoped that a 
charming companion on either side has beguiled and 
shortened a time which otherwise must have been 
tedious. Now general closing up of men to host, and 
reassembling of decanters ; age, quality, and vintage of 
wine discussed during consumption thereof. At last 
coffee, which is. neither black nor hot. Joining the 
ladies ; music by the daughters of the house ; service of 
gunpowder tea, fatal to the coming night's rest if taken 
in a moment of forgetfulness ; and carriages announced. 
Admitted that such an exhibition is impossible now 
in any reasonable English circle, it nevertheless corre- 
sponds very closely in style with that of the public din- 
ner; a state of things without excuse. And the large 
private dinner is still generally too large, the menu too 
pretentious. Let me, however, be permitted to record, 
equally in proof of growing taste, and as a grateful per- 
sonal duty, how many admirable exceptions to the pre- 
vailing custom above described are now afforded. The 
dinner of society has, since the earlier editions of this 
work appeared, been greatly abridged in length, and 
improved by the substitution of lighter and more deli- 
cate dishes for the solid meats of the last generation. 
At the same time, a menu suitable for a large party 
must be framed so as to offer various dishes for choice 
to meet the differing tastes of numerous guests, and it 
must therefore be more comprehensive than that sup- 
plied to a small one, say of six or eight guests. Let us 
see how this is to be met. First the soups: it is the 
custom to offer a consomme, which ought to be perfect 
in clearness, color, and savor, and be served perfectly 
hot ; containing a few vegetables, etc. , variously treated 
— doubtless the best commencement, as it is the keynote 



SIR HENRY'S VIEW OF MODERATION. 213 

of the dinner, revealing also as it does nine times out of 
ten the calibre of the cook to whose talent the guest is 
intrusted. But there is mostly an alternative of white 
soup, and this is almost always a mistake. Many per- 
sons refuse it, and they are right ; containing as it gen- 
erally does a considerable proportion of cream — an inju- 
dicious beginning when there is much variety to follow ; 
excellent sometimes as one of three or four dishes, but 
dangerous otherwise to the guest who has not an excep- 
tionally powerful digestion. But suppose that oysters, 
vinegar, and chablis have just been swallowed. A 
brown puree, as of game, or one of green vegetable less 
frequently met with, a ' Saint- Germain,' for example, 
would be safer. Two fish, of course, should always be 
served, as for instance a slice of Severn or Christchurch 
salmon just arrived from the water, for its own sake, 
and a fillet of white fish for the sake of its sauce and 
garnish, which should be therefore perfect. The next 
dish is in London a question under discussion : namely, 
the question of precedence to an entree, or to the piece 
de resistance. The custom was to postpone the appear- 
ance of the latter until lighter dishes had been dis- 
patched or declined. If, however, the English joint is 
required at a meal already comprehensive in the matter 
of dishes, and taken at a late hour, it seems more 
reasonable to serve it next to the fish, when those who 
demand a slice of meat may be expected to have 
an appropriate appetite, which will certainly be im- 
paired equally by accepting the entrees, or by fasting 
partially without them. But nothing so substantial as 
a joint is now required at a dinner of this kind; an 
entree of meat at all events replaces it, if wanted. 
Then one or two light entrees follow, and these 
must necessarily be either in themselves peculiarly 
tempting morsels, or products of culinary skill, offering 
inducements to the palate rather than to an appetite 
which is no longer keen. Then the best roast possible 
in season, a choice of two, and a salad ; a first-rate vege- 
table, a slice of really fine ham, to some a most fitting 
accompaniment ; two choice sweets, one of which may be 
iced; a Parmesan soufiie, a herring roe on toast, or a 



214 FRUIT CONSIDERED AN ORNAMENT. 

morsel of fine, barely salted caviare, pale and pearly 
gray, which may be procured in two or three places at 
most in town, will complete the dinner. For dessert, 
which may be ushered in with a couple of companion 
ices of delicate texture, the finest fruits in season to grace 
the table, and for light amusement after ; or simply nuts 
in variety, and dry biscuits ; nothing between the two 
is tolerable, and little more than the latter is really 
wanted; only for decorative purposes fruit equals 
flowers. But it may be admitted that the diminished 
number of sweet entremets strengthens the plea for a 
supply of delicious fruits, rendering the dessert useful 
and agreeable, as well as ornamental. 

And now that dessert is over, let me say that I do not 
admit the charge sometimes intimated, although delicately, 
by foreigners of a too- obvious proclivity to self-indulg- 
ence on the part of Englishmen in permitting the ladies to 
leave the table without escort to the drawing-room. The 
old custom of staying half an hour or even an hour after- 
ward to drink wine, which is doubtless a remnant of 
barbarism, has long been considered indefensible. The 
best wines the host can supply should appear in appro- 
priate places in the course of dinner ; and after dinner 
drinking should be simply a demand for a glass or two 
of the excellent ' Mouton ' or ' Lafitte,' or of the perfect 
1 Pommery and Greno,' 'Roederer' or 'Perrier Jouet' 
which have been known to repose these dozen years or 
more in some snug and quiet celler of the back base- 
ment, where goodly remnants still exist of the vintage 
of '74. Still, the separation of the party into two por- 
tions for fifteen or twenty minutes is useful to both, 
and leads perhaps more completely to a general mixture 
of elements on reunion after than is attained by the orig- 
inal pairs together. Whether this be so or not, the 
ladies have a short interval for the interchange of hear- 
says and ideas relative to matters chiefly concerning 
their special interests ; while the men enjoy that indis- 
pensable finish to a good dinner, an irreproachable cup of 
coffee and a cigarette, and the sooner they arrive the 
better. With the small dinners of men, it can scarcely 
too quickly follow the last service." 



ALL DEPENDS UPON THE POINT OF VIEW. 215 

Everything is relative. The logical outcome of a 
crusade against the use of alcoholic drinks — after it is 
conceded that such drinks are at once poisonous and 
useless — is the entire banishment of these drinks from 
our tables and from use. Very many persons who 
greatly deprecate drunkenness are yet in favour of what 
they denominate a moderate use of wine and beer ; such 
persons are persuaded that the use of these drinks in 
moderation is a positive benefit to digestion and to health. 
The underlying thought of this book is that modern dis- 
eases and sickness are primarily the result of errors in 
diet — in food and in drink; that these errors can only 
be corrected by a knowledge of those foods, necessarily 
simple, which are at once adequately nourishing and most 
easily digested, and by ascertaining the requisite quan- 
tities to be used — how to eat enough and not too much ; 
and that in order to accomplish these results men must 
make a life habit, having ascertained what these foods 
and amounts are, of confining themselves to this simple 
diet day after day, and year after year. There are a 
large number of so-called moderate drinkers who take 
the view pointed out above, namely, that while intem- 
perance is a fruitful source of evil, and to be avoided, a 
moderate use of wine and beer with food is valuable and 
necessary. Nearly all persons at the present day are 
of opinion that what might be called moderation, in 
variety of dishes, and in the indulgence in the so-called 
pleasures of the table, is proper and desirable. Fifty to 
seventy-five years ago nearly every person thought — if 
they thought at all about the matter — that the position 
now espoused by the moderate drinker was the correct 
one ; it was taken for granted by nearly every person 
that wine and beer with food were desirable. One re- 
sult of the temperance crusade that has been waged in 
America and England has been to lessen the number 
of persons who are in favour of moderate drinking, 



ai6 AVOIDABLE ERRORS IN DIET. 

and to greatly increase the number of persons who 
demand total abstention from alcoholic drinks, and, as 
one means of bringing this about, demand the total sup- 
pression of all trade in such drinks. It is our belief that 
the positions taken by the temperance workers are im- 
pregnable, and that as time goes on the number of 
converts to so-called teetotalism will increase until alco- 
hol will be universally regarded as injurious and useless. 
So, too, it is our belief that a simplicity in diet bearing 
somewhat the same relation to the food that water bears 
to the drink of modern life is as firmly grounded in 
physiology and science as the crusade against alcohol, 
and that the more experiments in simplicity of diet are 
made the more converts there will be to this view. When 
the time comes that it is universally recognized that the 
present eating habits of civilization are such as necessa- 
rily tend to overeating, the undermining of the digestive 
powers, and the ultimate breakdown of health, it will be 
seen that the craving for variety, the effort to provide 
for our tables toothsome titbits and tempting flavors, is 
part and parcel of the mistake made now so generally of 
indulging in alcoholic and other stimulants. And as this 
agitation goes on, the time will come when not only abso- 
lute abstention from alcoholic drinks will be the rule, but 
the use of the simplest food in measured quantities will 
be universal. Sir Henry Thomson, in his work on 
"Diet in Relation to Age and Activity," tells us that he 
has come to the conclusion ' ' that a proportion amount- 
ing to at least more than one-half of the disease which 
embitters the middle and upper classes of the population 
is due to avoidable errors in diet." And in his book 
"Food and Feeding," already quoted from, he says: 
"The intake and the output should correspond. . . 
Many a man might indeed safely pursue a sedentary 
career, taking only a small amount of exercise, and yet 
maintain an excellent standard of health, if only he 



SIR HENRY THOMSON INCONSISTENT, 217 

were careful that the intake in the form of diet corre- 
sponded with the expenditure which his occupations, 
mental and physical, demand." In the light of this 
teaching, how inconsistent and ridiculous become such 
recommendations as those given in the preceding quo- 
tations, recommending elaborate dining and wining. 
Sir Henry also tell us in "Food and Feeding" that 
alcohol and tobacco are probably not necessary to any 
person. This being true, and the evils resulting from 
the use of intoxicating drinks being so great, the tem- 
perance worker may very well wonder that so learned 
and enlightened a physician will lend his influence to 
the use of these injurious drinks ; in precisely the same 
light the hygienist, who has found that the most enjoy- 
able life and health is to be had on the simplest diet, 
will wonder how it is possible for Sir Henry Thomson 
to state in one breath that more than one-half of the 
diseases of middle life are caused by easily avoidable 
errors in diet, and that the intake and the output should 
correspond, while in another sentence he recommends 
to his readers a course of diet that can have but one 
result — the encouragement of those very errors in diet 
which he says causes more than half of the diseases of 
modern life. 

The error, almost universal in civilization, of seek- 
ing for a variety of dishes at meals, and for a change 
from day to day, is fraught with great evil. At the out- 
set the object that is sought to be obtained is in the 
nature of things defeated. The spectacle of the gour- 
met and rich man of the world seated in his carriage, 
stopped in the street by the exigencies of traffic, who 
witnesses with envy and indignation a street urchin 
munching a crust of bread with evident appetite and 
relish, and reflects that he has no relish for his own 
sumptuous dinners, is a good illustration of this whole 
question. Nature is the supreme guide; and we must 



218 HUNGER IS THE BEST SAUCE. 

look to her and be guided by her teachings in every at- 
tempt to thread our way out of the forest of difficulties 
and diseases with which we are environed. If it be 
accepted that man's natural diet is fruit and nuts — and it 
will be found difficult to construct any other hypothesis 
that will fulfill all the conditions and requisites of the 
case — it is is easy to see not only that the diet of primi- 
tive man consisted of a single dish or food, but that such 
diet was continued meal after meal, and day after day, 
as long as the supply from a given tree or grove held 
out. Just so surely as the not-overfed lad of the street 
has a better appetite and relish than the pampered child 
of fortune, it is true that whoever will continuously pur- 
sue a diet of a single dish of simple and adequate food at 
a meal will find a distinctly better relish for such food 
than is possible to the luxurious diner-out, or to any 
person in the habit of eating a variety of foods from day 
to day. Soup is a mistake at the very outset. In a natu- 
ral state man would get all the water needed from his 
fruits ; digestion goes forward much better when the gas- 
tric juice is not diluted with fluids. If not enough fresh 
fruit is taken at meals to afford the needed amount of 
water — and most people will find their digestive powers 
too weak to properly digest and dispose of so large an 
amount of fruit as is needed for this purpose — it will 
be advisable to drink from a half-pint to a pint of water 
— preferably pure soft or distilled water — an hour before 
eating, which provision having been attended to, it 
will be found that no drink whatever is needed at meal- 
time ; and persistent following of this rule will show the 
great majority of persons that they not only will have no 
inconvenience in doing without drink at meals, but that 
they will enjoy such meals distinctly more than those in 
which drink forms so important a part. The experi- 
ments by Dr. Beaumont showed that soup made no pro- 
gress toward digestion until the larger share of the liquid 



SIMPLICITY MORE HEALTHFUL. 219 

was absorbed into the circulation ; and it is now well 
known that many soups are very difficult of digestion. 

The custom of preceding a meat dinner with fish is 
altogether wrong. Fish and fruit is an adequate diet ; 
and it will be found by all persons who are fond of it 
that if they will make a meal upon fish, with a sufficient 
and not overmuch quantity of food- fruits, all legitimate 
delights of the palate may be enjoyed upon this simple 
fare. Meat and fruit is also an adequate diet, furnish- 
ing all the elements physiologically needed by man's 
organism, and whoever has meat at dinner is better off 
in not having fish as well, for several reasons. There is 
less liability to overeat ; and there is less difficulty for 
the stomach to digest a single article of food than a 
variety taken at the same meal. And surely, if these 
affirmations are found upon experiment to be proven 
correct, how manifestly absurd, in a dinner that pro- 
vides soup and fish and meat, to bring entrees which 
are invariably concoctions of rich meats with grains or 
vegetables, and which are usually an adequate food 
alone. And as if this folly must grow by what it feeds 
on, the jaded human stomach that has been filled to 
repletion with soup and fish, and entree and roast, is 
offered pudding, which is again generally a combination 
of grains with sugar and animal products, and forms of 
itself an adequate food. After this array of surfeiting 
dishes the tired digestion is offered cheese to goad it to 
action, and cheese is a highly nitrogenous compound 
which, with bread and sweet fruits, is alone adequate 
nourishment for prince or peasant. As for fruit, it is 
sufficient comment on the unnatural habits of modern 
dining that it is relegated to the last place, and used 
chiefly for ornamental purposes ; as Sir Henry Thomson 
naively remarks, * ' for decorative purposes fruit equals 
flowers." 



PART IIL 
THE NATURAL FOOD OF MAN. 



The Natural Food of Man. 



CHAPTER I. 
GENERAL SURVEY. 

" Yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." — Genesis vi. 3. 

It is the office of the philanthropist as well as of the 
scientist to observe phenomena, to classify facts, and if 
possible to ascertain the causes of phenomena. 

Man has many points of essential difference from the 
lower animals, but in no way does he differ in the pres- 
ent condition of the race more conspicuously than in the 
matter of health. It matters not whether we scrutinize 
the beasts of the field and wood, the fishes of the sea, or 
the birds of the air; the prevailing condition is health 
and vigour. If the naturalist or huntsman finds a bird, a 
fish, or other animal ill or lame, he knows at once that 
there has been an accident, a combat, or an inadequate 
supply of food. Man, on the contrary, is found quite 
generally out of health. Note at the outset the differ- 
ence in the mortality of the young. The careful farmer 
has no difficulty in rearing nearly all the young of 
horses, cattle, sheep and the like born on his farm. 
Statistics show that fully one-half of the human race 
dies before the age of five is reached. Naturalists assert 
that the longevity of an animal is five or six times the 



222 NATURAL TERM OF LIFE. 

period required for full development. Man does not 
reach this period until the age of 20 or 25, and hence, 
applying the same rule, if 20 years be taken as the time-, 
required for maturity, his natural lifetime is from 100 to 
120 years; or taking the longer period, from 125 to 150 
years. For the purposes of this inquiry the smaller 
figure is ample. We have the astounding fact that one- 
half of the human race dies in infancy, and the remain- 
ing half does not reach, on an average, a greater age than 
50 or 55 years. If man's natural life be taken to be 100 
years, one-half die at the average age of two or three, 
and the remaining half average over 40 years short of 
the full term; if 120 years be taken, then, while one-half 1 
die in infancy, the remaining half live on the average to 
less than one-half of the full term; and if 120 years be 
taken, and no account be taken of infant mortality, the 
average is but slightly more than one- quarter of man's 
natural term of life. 

Such a wholesale destruction of human life undoubt- 
edly betokens wide-spread illness. What cause or causes 
are at work to bring about this result? 

Physiologists quite uniformly illustrate the physiology 
of man by that of the lower animals. If this method be 
sound, it is equally applicable in the search into the 
causes of man's diseases. 

When a horse is taken ill its owner investigates the 
animal's diet in search of the cause of illness. More- 
over, in his efforts to cure its ailments he usually lays I 
greatest stress upon the matter of diet. No food is 
given the sick animal, which generally shows no disposi- 
tion to eat. When the horse begins to regain health 
and appetite, care is taken as to the kinds and qualities 
of food given ; and after rest, and plenty of water, a 
regulation of the diet is the chief means relied on to 
effect a cure. 

Some forty years since, in studying the writings of 



ANIMALS IN NATURE ALWAYS WELL. 223 

rail, Nichols, Shew and other writers and hygienic 
physicians I became convinced that what is sound rea- 
soning and good practice in the case of the illness of 
horses and cattle is equally wise and good in the treat- 
ment of human beings ; and since in the case of the sick 
horse the chief remedial measure for his recovery is a 
regulation of his diet, so I became convinced it ought to 
be in the event of a human being taken ill. Moreover, 
since, as before remarked, animals in a state of nature 
are quite generally in vigorous health and strength, just 
so, I argued, will man become and be if the causes un- 
derlying his illness are discovered; and I became con- 
vinced that when these causes are discovered they will 
be seen to relate chiefly to the matter of diet. 

In pursuance of this inquiry, and meditating upon 
the data which this theory furnishes, I noted that ani- 
mals in their natural state live upon foods which are 
spontaneously produced by nature, while man not only 
does not live upon foods so produced, but is almost un- 
iversally living upon artificial foods artificially produced. 

The thought occurred to me that since nature has 
provided a natural food for all animals below man, it 
is not unreasonable to suppose that no exception was 
made in his case, and that nature has provided a food 
that is as natural to man as grasses to the herbivora, or 
flesh to the carnivora. If so, what is this natural food 
of man ? 

Scientists are in agreement that man made his 
advent upon the planet in a warm climate ; also that 
primitive man was without tools and without fire. If 
this position be contested it is not difficult to substantiate 
it, If it be allowed without challenge, the inquiry as to 
what must have been the natural diet of man becomes 
simple and easily solved. If man first lived in a warm 
climate, and if, like other animals, he subsisted on foods 
spontaneously produced by nature, these foods must 



224 WHAT IS MAN'S NATURAL FOOD? 

have been those which grow wild in such a climate, quite 
probably such foods as are still spontaneously produced 
in such localities. The woods of the south, as is well 
known, abound in sweet fruits and nuts. It is taught 
by botanists that wheat is an artificial product developed 
from some grass plant not now known. Moreover, 
cereals are the product of the temperate zone, not of 
those regions where there is no winter ; and it was there- 
fore a necessity of man's sustenance when he was without 
agriculture, without tools, and without fire, and had to 
depend upon foods spontaneously produced by nature, 
that he live in a region where these foods were pro- 
duced at all seasons of the year. This narrows or con- 
fines the inquiry to two articles of diet — fruit and nuts. 

When this thought was fully borne into my mind I 
first asked myself : How adequate is such a diet for man ? 
It is well known that there are three principal classes 
of food which are required in every healthy dietary, 
namely, the carbonaceous, the nitrogeneous, and the 
phosphatic or mineral. The function of the carbona- 
ceous food is to support the heat of the body and the 
vital power ; the office of the nitrogeneous is to support 
muscular activity; and that of the phosphatic is more 
especially to support the brain and nerve tissues. The 
proportionate amounts of these various food-stuffs daily 
required are said by physiologists to be about 22 ounces 
in the dry state, and of these about 16 ounces are needed 
of the carbonaceous, about 5 ounces of the nitrogenous, 
and less than an ounce of the phosphatic. How, I asked 
myself, does this natural food — fruit and nuts — answer 
these requirements ? I saw at a glance that, according to 
eminent chemists and authorities on the constituent ele- 
ments of these foods, they abound in the requisite 
elements for the adequate support of the human frame, 
and, moreover, that they contain these elements in about 
the right proportion. Furthermore, I saw that I had not 



FRUITS GIVE GREATEST RELISH. 225 

only hit upon foods spontaneously produced by nature, 
but also upon foods which need no artificial preparation, 
no cooking, no sweetening, seasoning, or manipulation of 
any kind to make them palatable and attractive. If the 
dishes that are set before a gourmet, those that have 
been prepared by the most skillful chefs, and that are 
the product of the most elaborate inventions and pre- 
parations, were set beside a portion of the sweet fruits 
and nuts as produced by nature, without addition or 
change, every child and most men and women would con- 
sider the fruits and nuts quite equal if not superior in 
gustatory excellence to the most recherche dishes. 

Granting all this to be true, it does not follow that 
the problem has been solved. While fruits and nuts 
may be the natural food of man, and might have been 
an adequate diet for primitive tribes who had nothing 
to do but pluck and eat, and who had none of the 
severe mental strain inevitable to those in active pursuits 
in modern civilization, it does not follow that these 
foods are adequate for civilized man in his vastly changed 
nature and conditions. A scientist is said to be one who 
observes facts and classifies them, and science, then, is 
nothing more nor less than systematically classified facts. 
I saw that nothing but a scientific test could solve the 
problem. While it does not follow that sweet fruits and 
nuts are an adequate diet for man to-day because they 
undoubtedly formed the diet of primitive man, still, the 
fact that they contain every element needed for the sup- 
port of the human frame, and the fact that these foods 
were undoubtedly those on which primitive man sub- 
sisted, afforded a sufficient basis for justifying an experi- 
ment to ascertain what would be the effect of such foods 
upon modern man. The primal aim underlying this 
inquiry is the effort to determine what are the causes of 
modern diseases, and how man may be made as healthy 
as the animals are in a state of nature, 



226 FRUIT AND BREAD— ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCES. 

Instituting a comparison between sweet fruits and 
nuts on the one hand, and the diet of civilization on the 
other, I soon detected an essential difference. I saw that 
while bread, cereals, and vegetables are the basis of the 
diet of the present day, that starch is the chief element 
in these foods. Scrutinizing the component parts of 
sweet fruits and nuts, I saw that these fruits contain 
very little starch, and hence I perceived that I had 
brought to light a fact that was not unlikely to bear an 
important part in the solution of the problem before me. 
What is the effect of starch upon the system ? Wherein 
does a diet that is without starch differ physiologically 
from one in which starch is the predominant element? 
In that the two foods involve a very different process 
of digestion. Sweet fruits are composed largely of 
glucose, with a fair proportion of nitrogen. As soon as 
such fruits are eaten the glucose is found ready, pre- 
pared by the hand of nature, to be absorbed and assim- 
ilated by the system. When first taken into the stom- 
ach, the nitrogenous portion of these foods is unassimi- 
lable, but when they meet and mix with the gastric juice 
they are readily converted into a substance which is at 
once soluble and assimilable by the system. When the 
nuts of southern climes — almonds, Brazil nuts, and the 
like — are ingested, the nitrogenous elements and fixed 
or free oils are the chief elements of nourishment. 
The nitrogenous portion, like the same elements in 
the sweet fruits, is made soluble and assimilable by the 
gastric juice; the oil is carried to the intestines and 
meets with the pancreatic juice before it is made 
into an emulsion which renders it assimilable. There 
is a small portion of starch in most nuts, and in some 
fruits. While the ptyaline of the saliva will convert a 
small fraction of starch foods into glucose, as will here- 
after be shown, only a small portion of this transforma- 
tion is effected in the mouth. As soon as the starch 



NATURAL FOOD DIGESTED IN MAIN STOMACH. 227 

undergoing digestion by its admixture with the saliva 
reaches the stomach, the acid nature of the gastric juice 
at once prevents any further change of the starch into 
glucose, and therefore, although undergoing in the 
stomach mechanical processes of digestion sufficient to 
render fruits and nuts soluble and assimilable, the starch 
is still undigested, and must be passed on to the intes- 
tines to undergo a second process of digestion before it 
is soluble and assimilable. 

We are here confronted by a somewhat startling dis- 
covery. If it be granted that the sweet fruits and nuts 
of the south are the natural food of man, it follows 
that very much the larger proportion of the nourishing 
elements of man's natural food is digested in the main 
stomach. True, there is a small percentage of starch in 
some nuts and in some fruits, and nuts are rich in oil, 
and this oil and starch must be digested in the second 
stomach. This relatively small amount of food requir- 
ing intestinal digestion is somewhat in proportion to the 
relative size of the two stomachs, the main stomach in 
both man and the higher apes being a large organ, and 
the duodenum or second stomach a small one. Granting 
that fruits and nuts and like foods are naturally adapted 
to man's digestion, this adjustment of the relative sizes 
of the two stomachs is quite in harmony with the food 
to be digested. Since man, by artificial contrivance 
and agriculture, has developed and employed cereals 
and starchy vegetables as the basis of his diet, he has 
reversed what appears to be the natural order. He is 
now living upon a diet the larger proportion of which, 
although remaining in the first stomach to await the 
digestion of the nitrogenous portions, still remains 
mostly undigested, and is passed on to the second 
stomach before digestion takes place. That the main 
stomach is thus called on to perform but a relatively 
small part of the digestion of his food, and the second 



228 MAN'S DIGESTIVE ORGANS UNCHANGED BY HABITS. 

stomach, although in point of capacity a relatively insig- 
nificant organ, is called upon to perform the digestion 
of the larger portion of his food. 

It has been urged as an objection that since the 
second stomach is provided with a digestive ferment 
that is adapted to the digestion of starch foods, this fact 
is to be taken as a proof that such digestion was de- 
signed in the formation of man's body. A satisfactory 
answer to this objection is found in the fact, as before 
stated, that man's natural food — granting that southern 
fruits and nuts constitute that regimen — has a propor- 
tion not only of oil but of starch, and hence there is a 
good reason why man's second stomach was provided 
with a digestive juice adapted to such digestion. But 
since in man's natural food the starch and oil constitute 
but a small fraction of his entire food, it is reasonable to 
expect that a smaller sized apparatus would be found 
adapted to their digestion; and such is the fact as 
regards the relative capacity of the two stomachs. 

It has also been urged by objectors that the thou- 
sands of years during which man has made cereals a 
chief portion of his diet have not unlikely modified his 
anatomy and physiology by evolutionary changes, and 
that, whatever might have been his diet and his physi- 
cal conformation originally, these thousands of years 
have developed him into a natural starch- eating animal. 
A conclusive refutation of this contention is the fact — 
more fully amplified in succeeding chapters — that the 
orang-outang and the several species of long-armed apes, 
which have, apparently since time began, fed upon nuts 
and fruits, to the exclusion of cereals and starchy vege- 
tables, have to-day the same digestive apparatus in sub- 
stantially the same proportion of parts as man, after his 
thousands of years of cereal eating. This fact is unde- 
niable evidence that man's organs have not undergone 
essential modification or change by these centuries of 



THE THEORY CONFIRMED BY FACTS. 229 

unnatural diet. A further confirmation of the sound- 
ness of this position is found in the fact, also more fully 
discussed further on, that persons suffering from illness, 
and especially of the digestive organs, are invariably 
benefited by being placed upon an exclusively non-starch 
diet. If the organs had undergone the modification 
suggested, starch foods would naturally be those best 
adapted to man's restoration ; but if, as we contend, the 
race has been, during all these thousands of years of 
cereal eating, perpetually straining and overcrowding 
the powers of the second stomach, and thus deranging 
the digestive apparatus, — and if man is seen to be at 
once benefited by discontinuing that diet, and by tak- 
ing a food which is digested in the first stomach, — these 
facts tend to confirm the view that the adoption of a 
non-starch diet is in conformity with man's physiological 
structure and needs. 

I asked myself, what theories and practices are there 
in medical treatment of diet and digestion that have a 
bearing upon this point — this discovery that the natural 
food of man is substantially without starch, and that the 
diet of civilization is based upon starch ? 

The first illustration that occurred to me was that of 
the beef and hot water treatment which has had so sig- 
nal a success in America and been somewhat discussed 
in England. Dr. J. H. Salisbury, an American physi- 
cian and microscopist of some note, about thirty years 
since became convinced that an easily digested adequate 
food is the essential element to effect a cure of illness. 
His favorite statement is that lean of beef has the 
largest amount of nutrition for the least amount of di- 
gestive strain. Commencing practice in Cleveland, Ohio, 
Dr. Salisbury, in the treatment of chronic diseases by 
methods based almost exclusively upon this diet, achieved 
results so remarkable that his practice rapidly augmented, 
and he removed some fifteen years since to New York. 



2 3 o THE SALISBURY MEAT DIET. 

The history of his career is a record of triumphs. The 
facts of his treatment fly in the face of many usually re- 
ceived axioms of the medical profession. It is usually 
considered that a variety of food is necessary both for 
the invalid and for the robust. Dr. Salisbury gave a 
uniform diet. The lean of beef run through a mincing 
machine until it is reduced to a pulp, cooked just enough 
to change the red color into a drab, and seasoned with 
a little salt and pepper ; no drink whatever at meals, but 
a half-pint to a pint of hot water is insisted upon from 
a half-hour to an hour before each meal, and before 
retiring at night. Let it be remarked that this food is 
absolutely monotonous ; that there is no provision what- 
ever for a variety ; that it is given to all classes and con- 
ditions of patients — the fat, the lean, and those in mod- 
erate flesh; to the consumptive, the rheumatic, the 
asthmatic, the dropsical — to all. If facts are at the 
foundation of science, it will be difficult for those physi- 
cians who maintain the necessity for variety in food to 
adduce anything in the way of observed facts at all com- 
parable to this tremendous fact of the success of the 
Salisbury treatment. 

It is also generally considered that meat is too con- 
centrated a diet, and also that it is excremental and in- 
flammatory. The results of the Salisbury treatment do 
not confirm these views. It is quite true that a Salis- 
bury patient is not wholly satisfied with his diet; that 
he has unanswered longings ; but at the same time all 
classes and conditions of patients thrive upon it to a sur- 
prising degree. What facts are the vegetarians or the 
anti-meat-eaters able to produce to sustain their view that 
meat is inflammatory and poisonous? Something very 
decided is needed to meet the unanimity of the testi- 
mony of these patients who have been greatly benefited 
by a uniform and exclusive diet of meat and hot water. 

When I began to meditate upon the facts of the 



THOUGH VEGETARIANS, PRESCRIBED FLESH FOOD. 231 

Salisbury treatment I could see that it bears a relation to 
the discussion of the essential difference between natural 
food and the diet of civilization; I could see that Dr. 
Salisbury's diet is entirely free from starch; that he 
gives his patients a food which, excepting the free oil, is 
entirely digested in the stomach, and that the strain of 
starch digestion so inevitable in all bread and cereal 
diets is avoided. 

While engaged in medical practice in New York, 
Mrs. Densmore and I were strict vegetarians for years. 
At the same time, we found it necessary in treating 
patients for obesity to put them upon a flesh diet. We 
used no flesh ourselves ; we did not allow it to patients 
not obese ; but when it came to the reduction of obesity 
we found ourselves obliged to rely upon it. In the 
course of this practice we met with one set of phenomena 
that was very difficult to explain. Many patients came 
to us to get their obesity reduced — to get the twenty- 
five, fifty, or one hundred pounds, or the two, four, or 
six stone, of surplus flesh removed. It was our unvary- 
ing custom to make a memorandum of the patient's 
name, age, height, weight, and general condition of 
health. These patients usually complained of difficulty 
of digestion, of sick headache, neuralgia, or rheuma- 
tism, and kindred diseases. We prescribed for such 
patients a meat diet, with hygienic instructions as to 
ventilation of bedroom, bathing and the like, and a 
daily aperient. It was surprising to note the benefits 
that came to them over and above the reduction of the 
obesity. Sometimes in a week or two, and frequently in 
a month or two, the sick headache, or neuralgia, or 
rheumatism, or like troubles were greatly benefited, and 
often long before the obesity was entirely reduced these 
complaints were completely removed. I had never been 
able satisfactorily to account for these phenomena. 
When meditating upon what facts I might find bearing 



232 THE MILK, GRAPE, AND SPA CURES. 

upon the difference between a natural food, or a non- 
starch diet, and that usually adopted, I saw that, like 
Dr. Salisbury's, our obese patients had been treated by 
a non-starch diet, and that our experience was like Dr. 
Salisbury's as to the remarkable cures that we were 
enabled to bring about. 

Most observers of the diet question, be they physi- 
cians or laymen, will have noticed the increasing favour 
that a milk diet has received during the last twenty 
years. Formerly a patient suffering from fever was 
often prohibited the use of milk ; in modern practice it 
frequently happens that milk is the only food allowed. 
An exclusive diet of milk has been found to be extraor- 
dinarily efficacious in diabetes, and, as before said, 
among physicians of all classes a diet largely composed 
of milk is rapidly growing in favour. I saw that this 
formed another illustration, like Dr. Salisbury's patients, 
and like our own obese patients, of the wonderful cura- 
tive results of a non-starch diet. 

I noted also that patients at the grape cures on the 
Continent are fed largely on a diet of grapes. Generally 
a small amount of plain bread is allowed, but the chief 
food of the patients is grapes. There is much testimony 
as to wonderful cures that are accomplished by this 
regimen. I could see that this was another instance of 
a non-starch diet bringing about beneficial results. 

Inquiring into the diet of the German Spas at Carls- 
bad, Wiesbaden, etc., I was surprised to learn that a 
minimum amount of bread is allowed the patient, and 
that he is given a greatly augmented amount of flesh, 
eggs, and milk. While our own patients for obesity 
were only a few hundreds, and while those who have 
been so wonderfully benefited by the Salisbury treat- 
ment are only counted by thousands, those who have 
been benefited at these Continental health resorts num- 
ber tens of thousands, and those who have been bene- 



THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 233 

fited by a diet mainly of milk may be computed by hun- 
dreds of thousands. 

At the foundation I was gratified to find the same 
basic fact that the diet is essentially non-starch, and one 
in which bread, cereals, and starchy vegetables are re- 
duced to a minimum. 

As before remarked, I could see that it did not fol- 
low, even if fruits and nuts are the natural food of man, 
and were the diet on which primitive man existed in 
abounding health, that such a diet would be adequate in 
our day. But I believed that the many facts to which I 
have adverted were sufficient encouragement to make 
the experiment, and experiment must ever be the only 
scientific method of determining such questions. 

I adopted this diet personally in September, 1889, 
and in the November following there was published in 
the London Vegetarian a statement of the leading features 
of the non-starch system, and an appeal to food reformers 
to give it the test of experiment. A few were induced 
to adopt it from the outset. This number has been 
increased from month to month as the agitation has 
increased, and as more and more people have been bene- 
fited by its adoption, until at the time of writing — June, 
1892 — it is safe to say that some hundreds in England 
have adopted this diet, and have received marked benefit 
from it. It is worthy of note that, unlike the Salisbury 
system, the diet has been varied from one of fruits and 
nuts to an exclusive diet of meat and fruits. Mostly the 
sweet fruits — what I have denominated food-fruits — 
being chiefly dates, figs, bananas, raisins, prunes, apples, 
etc. , have formed the basis of this diet ; and it has been 
supplemented sometimes with nuts, at other times again 
with eggs and milk, or cheese, or with fish, poultry, or 
butchers' meat. It will be seen that there is one princi- 
ple uniting all these diets to each other, and connecting 
them with the Salisbury treatment and with that of the 



234 IS ONE MAN'S MEAT ANOTHER'S POISON? 

German Spas and health cures before referred to, name- 
ly, the absence of starch foods. 

A person holding to the doctrine that what is one 
man's meat may be another man's poison, — to the doc- 
trine that there is no general law at the basis of physiol- 
ogy and digestion and diet in health and disease, and 
that what is most valuable to any person can only be 
determined by observation of the idiosyncracies of that 
person, — perhaps to one in this frame of mind it will be 
impossible to make a demonstration of the truth of the 
non-starch diet system — a demonstration of the truth of 
the doctrine that there is a general law underlying phys- 
iology, digestion, and diet, that all mankind are made 
amenable to this law, and that, in the main, hard and 
fast rules of diet are applicable to all men. In a com- 
pany of 10,000 invalids, if 9,999 are placed upon a non- 
starch diet and signally benefited thereby, there is a 
sense in which it may be said it is not demonstrated that 
the remaining one necessarily would have been improved 
by it. At the same time, many questions that are con- 
sidered as settled in science are settled on much less 
evidence. When Priessnitz first established his water 
cure, some sixty years ago, his doctrine met with as 
much incredulity and opposition on the part of the ortho- 
dox physician as the non-starch diet system can possibly 
encounter. Notwithstanding the opposition, the water- 
cure treatment marched steadily onward, with wonderful 
results and with an ever-increasing army of converts, 
until to-day it may be considered as having an estab- 
lished scientific position, one recognized by all schools 
of medicine. There is even a greater unanimity in 
favour of the non-starch diet system than there was in 
favour of the water-cure processes, because at the outset 
the water cure was not infrequently administered un- 
wisely, and sometimes very serious after-effects resulted. 
In the matter of the non- starch diet system, it is doubted 



CONFIRMED BY TENS OF THOUSANDS. 235 

if a single individual can be found who has suffered 
illness upon commencing this diet, and who has not 
felt himself or herself signally benefited by even a few 
months' adoption of it; and generally a few weeks 
and sometimes even a few days are sufficient to show 
marked improvement. It is readily granted that if the 
demonstration of so grave and far-reaching a question as 
the injuriousness of bread and cereals be predicated on 
the testimony of the few hundred patients in our own 
practice who were signally benefited by a flesh diet, and 
the few hundred more who have been benefited by the 
adoption of the fruit and nut theory, — if this was all that 
could now be adduced in favor of this system, it could 
not be regarded as conclusive. But when there is added 
to it the testimony of thousands of patients who have 
been uniformly benefited by the Salisbury treatment, 
and the tens of thousands who have been similarly bene- 
fited by a like diet at the German Spas, and the hundreds 
of thousands who have been similarly benefited by a diet 
composed chiefly of milk, it will be difficult to point out 
why this doctrine that fruit and nuts are man's natural 
food may not be considered as demonstrated by this con- 
sensus of testimony. 



CHAPTER II. 
. OFFICE OF THE SALIVA. 

We do not rest our case upon experiment alone. 
The physiology of digestion, and what is known of the 
methods of digestion of the different food-stuffs in the 
stomach, have an important bearing upon the case. 

If search be made into the latest physiological hand- 
books, it will be seen that knowledge is very hazy and 
most indefinite as to the extent of the digestion of starch 
foods that is accomplished by the saliva and the mouth. 
So far as I have been able to ascertain, with the excep- 
tion of some experiments which were made by Professor 
Goodfellow, and which will be given in the following 
pages, no experiments have been made by physiologists 
to determine the amount of starch digestion performed 
by the saliva. That there is a conversion of starch into 
glucose in the mouth is easily proven ; and since bread 
is the basis of the diet of civilization, physiologists have 
taken it for granted that it is a valuable food, and that 
thorough mastication would largely assist in its adequate 
digestion. Writers on physiology and hygienists of all 
schools never tire of asserting that thorough mastication 
is necessary. With a view to ascertaining the extent to 
which starch is transformed into sugar in the mouth by 
the action of the saliva, Professor John Goodfellow, of 
the Bow and Bromley Institute, made a series of experi- 
ments which were first published in the Vegetarian of 
20th June, 1891, and which are subjoined: 



PROFESSOR GOODFELLOW'S EXPERIMENTS. 



237 



E. Densmore, Esq., M.D. 

Dear Sir: — I have very carefully performed the fol- 
lowing experiments in accordance with your instructions. 

Experiment 1. Fifty grains of the crumb of white 
bread without admixture with anything else were thor- 
oughly insalivated for 60 seconds. The bolus was then 
expectorated into an acid medium, and the mouth rinsed 
out with distilled water. The washings were added to 
the tube containing the bolus. The diastasic action of 
pty aline was thus arrested at the end of about 65 sec- 
onds. The bread was then analyzed, and its composi- 
tion compared with that of the bolus, with the object of 
ascertaining how much starch had been converted into 
sugar by the action of pty aline. 



Albuminoids . . 

Starch 

Sugar 

Dextrine .... 

Fat 

Mineral matter 



100 parts of the dry solids 

of the bread before insal- 

ivation contained 




100 parts of the dry solids 

ofbolus, etc., free from 

acid and mucous 

contained 



12.5 

67.6 

12.2 

4.6 

1.6 

100. o 



From the experiment I conclude that about 10 per 
cent, of the gelatinized and broken-down starch of dry 
bread is converted into sugar and dextrine during thor- 
ough insalivation. 

Experiment 2. Fifty grains of the same bread were 
taken and moistened with tea, and insalivated for the 
average time that is allowed by most people for moist 
foods (15 seconds were allowed), and the bolus treated 
in the same way as in the first experiment in order to 
arrest the action of the ptyaline. The following table 
gives the amount of starch and sugar before and after 
insalivation : 



238 



GOODFELLOW'S EXPERIMENTS CONTINUED. 



Albuminoids . . . 

Starch 

Sugar 

Dextrine 

Fat 

Mineral matter . 



100 parts of the dry solids 

of the bread before insal- 

ivation contained 



12.5 

75-4 
6.0 

1.6 

i-5 



100 parts of the dry solids 

of bolus, etc., free from 

mucous and acid 

contained 



".5 

73-8 

6.5 
4.1 

1.6 

1-5 

100. o 



From this experiment I conclude that only 2 per 
cent, of gelatinized starch of moistened foods is con- 
verted into sugar and dextrine in the mouth under ordi- 
nary circumstances. 

Experiment 3. One hundred grains of ordinary 
oatmeal porridge mixed with milk and cane sugar were 
insalivated for four seconds (by a number of observa- 
tions it was ascertained that four seconds was the aver- 
age time during which porridge was allowed to stay in 
the mouth). The diastasic action was arrested in the 
same way as in previous experiments. The analysis of 
the porridge before insalivation, including milk and 
sugar, gave the following results in 100 parts of dry 
solids : 



Albuminoids 

Starch 


i7-5 
60.4 


Dextrose ) 

Maltose V 

Lactose ) 

Sucrose 

Fat 


6.7 

3-i 
10.2 


Mineral matter . . . 


2. 1 



IOO. o 



No very great difference in 
composition could be de- 
tected after insalivation. 
There was a very slight in- 
crease in the quantity of 
sugar (dextrose and maltose) 
representing not more than 
y 2 per cent, of the starch. 



The results of these experiments support the view 



EXPERIMENTS CONTINUED. 239 

that very little starch of our foods is converted into 
sugar in the month during ordinary mastication. They 
also point to the conclusion that the function of the 
saliva is mainly mechanical, in moistening the buccal 
cavity, and in facilitating the formation of a bolus. 
I remain, dear sir, 

Yours very faithfully, 
(Signed) John Goodfellow, F.R.M.S., 

Professor of Physiology and Hygiene at the 
Bow and Bromley Institute, and co-author 
of ' Practical Physiology.' " 

The following is quoted from a letter from Professor 
Goodfellow, published in the Vegetarian of July 1 1 : 

''For many years I have made the secretion and 
functions of saliva a special study. I have carefully 
ascertained in the above cases that the secretion has had 
all the characteristics of normal saliva. I have experi- 
mented on prepared starch mucilage with the saliva of 
at least a hundred different persons. 

The subject of this experiment was a young man in 
sound health, a partial vegetarian, a non-smoker, and a 
life abstainer. The saliva was tested on a standard 
preparation of starch mucilage before the experiments, 
and compared with the mean of a number of other re- 
sults which I had obtained in past years. It was also 
compared at the same time with the salivas of myself, 
my demonstrator, and a friend who happened to be 
present, and it showed an amylic power above the aver- 
age. The results of careful experiments and observa- 
tions, extending over a lengthened period, have con- 
vinced me that there is very little difference." 

Professor Goodfellow contributed to the Vegetarian, 
under date of June nth, 1892, an account of some 
further experiments as to the action of saliva on raw 
cereals and pulses, from which the following is quoted : 

' ' It need hardly be pointed out that in raw vegetable 
foods the starch grains are inclosed in cells of cellulose, 
the latter being impervious to the action of ptyaline. 
Unless the cellulose walls are burst, the starch granules 



240 EXPERIMENTS ON RAW STARCH. 

are never exposed to the action of the digestive juices. 
In cooked cereals the cells are burst by expansion pro- 
duced by heat, so that the digestion of the starch grains 
is greatly facilitated. Moreover, raw starch granules, 
even when set free, are extremely difficult to digest by 
the amy lie ferments of the body. Raw starch may be 
subjected to the action of pty aline for heat, without more 
than a trace of sugar being formed." 

The grains experimented upon were in one case a 
mixture of oats, wheat, barley, and rice. In a second 
experiment, a sample of lentils were used. In the 
third experiment, a mixture of cereals, linseed, coker- 
nut, and lentils. These samples were insalivated by 
being held in the mouth for five minutes, then expelled 
into a glass vessel, and there was added to the contents 
a two per cent, solution of pure hydrochloric acid, in 
order to arrest the action of the pty aline. Professor 
Goodf ellow sums up the results as follows : 

' ' The total amount of sugar formed in the mouth 
from the mixed cereals was 2.61 grams. This equals 
about 3.48 grams of starch. 

Taking the percentage of starch at 60, about 4.4 per 
cent, of the total raw starch was converted into sugar 
during insalivation. 

In the second case, taking the percentage of starch at 
50, about .9 per cent, of the total raw starch was con- 
verted into sugar during insalivation. 

" In the third case, taking the percentage of starch 
at 55, about .8 per cent, of the total raw starch was con- 
verted into sugar." 

It will be noticed that in the last two experiments 
the proportion of starch converted into sugar is less than 
one per cent. — practically an insignificant portion ; and 
when it is remembered that the samples of cereals were 
insalivated for five minutes, and that usually, during 
ordinary mastication of food, starch products are not 
insalivated one minute, it will be seen that the results of 
these experiments confirm our contention, namely, that 



STARCH NOT DIGESTED IN STOMACH. 241 

only an insignificant portion of starch foods is converted 
into sugar by the action of the saliva. Since the change 
of starch into sugar can only go forward in an alkaline 
medium, and since normal gastric juice is always acid, it 
follows that nearly all of the starch used as human food 
remains undigested in the stomach, and must be passed 
on to the intestines before digestion can take place. 

The obvious fact that must be deduced from Professor 
Goodfellow's experiments is that only an insignificant 
portion of the starch is digested in the mouth, even 
when mastication and insalivation have been performed 
in the most painstaking manner. When it is considered 
that millions of human beings swallow all their food 
with the minimum amount of mastication, also that 
large portions of starch foods are used in the form of 
porridges and puddings so loaded with water that there 
is no excitement to the salivary glands, and which pro- 
voke only a minimum flow of saliva, — when these facts 
are considered it is plain that the main portion of starch 
is not digested in the stomach, but must wait for the 
action of the intestines. A physician or physiologist 
whose attention is now called to this fact for the first 
time is urged to consider some of the deductions that 
are involved in these experiments. While the act of 
digestion, like all natural processes, is easy enough 
when the individual is normal and vigorous, it is well 
known to the physiologist and physician that the process 
of digestion is in charge of the nervous system, and the 
very moment that there is any lack of vital power the 
matter of digestion becomes one of the greatest concern. 
When it is remembered that the starch portion of foods 
remains in the main stomach and undergoes unchanged 
its movements and churnings while the nitrogenous 
portion is being digested, and must then be passed on 
to the second stomach before it can be digested and 
assimilated, — when this is remembered, it only needs 



242 FRUIT PRE-DIGESTED BY NATURE. 

common sense to perceive that the digestion of starch 
involves great loss of digestive and nervous energy. 
The reader is asked not to lose sight of the fact that 
starch is the nourishment commonly used for keeping 
up the heat of the body, and that as starch it is insoluble 
and unassimilable ; that it only becomes soluble and as- 
similable by a chemical change, first from starch into 
dextrine, and secondly from dextrine into glucose. 
Wheat usually contains about 70 per cent, of starch, and 
bread, because of the greater proportion of water, 35 to 
40 per cent. The ordinary dried figs of commerce are 
said to contain about 68 per cent, of glucose, which glu- 
cose when eaten is in the identical condition that the 
starch of cereal food is converted into after a protracted 
and nerve-force- wasting digestion. It would seem to be, 
as before said, a matter of the merest common sense to 
perceive that a food that may be said to be pre -digested 
by nature, and that is all ready for absorption and assimi- 
lation when first ingested, requires much less strain 
upon the nervous system than a food having similar 
chemical elements, but which require complicated diges- 
tion before the system is able to make use of them. An 
interesting fact in regard to diet is in order in this con- 
nection. Invalids the world over are given their bread 
in the form of toast. The lay world is generally quite 
ignorant of why this is done, and the average physician 
is also ignorant. It is because toasting bread until it 
becomes brown largely converts the starch into dextrine ; 
and hence, so far as the brown portion is concerned, one 
of the processes of digestion is gone through before the 
bread is taken into the stomach. It will be found that 
the thinner the slices of bread, and the more thoroughly 
they are toasted, the easier digestion will be, and when 
all portions of the slice of bread are thoroughly toasted 
— not burned, but still changed to a deep brown color — 
it will be found to be still more easily digested than 



WHY TOASTING BREAD AIDS DIGESTION. 243 

ordinary toast. The sweet fruits are removed a step 
beyond. If there was some method by which a piece of 
toast could undergo a second transformation and the 
dextrine be converted into glucose, it would then in all 
probability be substantially as easy of digestion as the 
sweet fruits, for the simple reason that it would already 
be glucose ; in a word, no digestion would be necessary. 
It would seem beyond dispute that to a system that 
is weakened or already broken down the substitution of 
an easily digested food, like the sweet fruits, for one of 
difficult digestion, like bread and starchy foods, is a 
very necessary measure to effect restoration. Again, it 
would seem plain that a human being in apparently 
robust health is much more liable to remain so upon a 
food that is adapted to his organism, and that is of easy 
digestion, than upon one that is a foreign body, and that 
must undergo a protracted and difficult digestion before 
being of use to the system. 



CHAPTER III. 
CAUSE AND CURE OF CONSTIPATION. 

The ease with which the heat-giving elements of 
fruit are digested, and the difficulty attending the diges- 
tion of the same elements in bread and cereals, is only 
one-half the problem. Constipation is a concomitant of 
illness. A free and open habit is always indicative of 
health. Upon examination of these two classes of heat- 
forming food-stuffs it will be seen that starch foods tend 
to constipation and that sweet fruits are aperient. 

As for the constipating effects of bread, we have the 
testimony of the army of converts to brown or bran 
bread to the fact that the ordinary white flour of com- 
merce tends to constipation. Indeed, the chief reason 
why these friends of brown bread extol the virtues of 
that product is because the bran stimulates the move- 
ments of the stomach and intestines. There is no dif- 
ference between the common white bread of commerce 
and the brown or wholemeal bread of the hygienists, 
except the presence of the bran in the one and its 
absence in the other. It is the universal testimony of 
physiologists and chemists that bran passes through the 
body without change, the process of digestion having 
no effect upon it. Furthermore, it is admitted by the 
hygienist that the aperient effect of the bran is the result 
of the irritation of the stomach and intestines by the bran 
particles, and that this result is mechanical. According 
to the testimony of the friends of brown bread, therefore, 



WHY FRUIT IS APERIENT. 245 

white flour has a constipating tendency, and bran has 
no chemical action upon the system, so its aperient effect 
must of necessity be the result of mechanical action. 
Not so with the sweet fruits. While it is undoubtedly 
true that the ingestion of the skins, seeds, and coarse 
elements of fruits that are largely composed of cellulose 
and indigestible matter is likely to have some mechanical 
effect upon the stomach and intestines analogous to that 
produced by the presence of bran bread, still, the rasp- 
ing and cutting element of the bran is entirely wanting, 
even when the skins and seeds of fruit are ingested. 
Moreover, that fruit is aperient from chemical rather 
than from mechanical reasons is proven by the fact that 
the juice of fruit, wholly removed from any skin, seed, 
cellular or indigestible matter, is known to have a de- 
cided aperient effect upon the system. This is undoubt- 
edly the result of an acid present in fruits which excites 
an intestinal and rectal secretion, and the presence of 
water in the intestines aids natural movements. 

It will be found in practice that a person who habit- 
ually derives the heat-giving elements exclusively from 
fruits, while apt to have free enough natural movements, 
does not after a time experience a too greatly aperient 
effect; whereas the substitution of a portion of cereal 
foods for the fruits will leave the system inadequately 
purged of its waste matter. 

We are thus face to face with the fact that a reliance 
upon bread and starch foods for our heat-giving nour- 
ishment entails a nerve-force-wasting digestion and a 
habit of constipation ; whereas a reliance on sweet fruits 
for our heat-giving sustenance frees us from all diffi- 
culty of digestion, and insures natural and adequate ex- 
cretion of all waste matter. 

As before said, fruit contains a specific acid calcu- 
lated to insure an aperient action, but there are forces 
brought to bear other than the absence of fruit foods 



246 WHY BREAD IS CONSTIPATING. 

which undoubtedly have to do with the constipating 
tendencies of a cereal diet. The first law of the animal 
economy is to provide for nutrition. Upon the presence 
of nutrition depends spirit; vigor, and life itself. Ade- 
quate nourishment is the foremost requisite of life. If a 
food be eaten which is not easily digested, which in fact 
must remain in the system for hours before any diges- 
tion takes place, the system in the meanwhile is not in 
any degree nourished by this undigested food. When 
the time comes that such food is carried to the intestines 
and rendered soluble and assimilable, the system must 
still have time in which to gain its needed nourishment 
from it. It is in obedience to this law that the system 
in dealing with starch food — and, for that matter, all 
food which require a considerable time in which to pre- 
pare for their assimilation — has a tendency to retain 
such food for a greater length of time than is natural 
or wholesome, to the end that its nourishment be ob- 
tained. Fruits and foods which are readily made assim- 
ilable in the first stomach in a short time yield up their 
nutritive elements, and the waste matter is promptly 
excreted from the system. Not so with the starch foods ; 
since hours have been wasted, so to speak, after their 
ingestion before they are rendered assimilable, there 
must still be provision made for adequate time in which 
to absorb their nourishment. The human organism is an 
automatic piece of machinery ; and when habitually fed 
upon starch foods a habit is engendered of retaining these 
foods within the system for a considerable period. Al- 
though this necessarily tends to constipation, and al- 
though the automatic machinery of the system is so con- 
structed that it aims to avoid all unheal thful or untoward 
conditions, still, as before remarked, nutrition being of 
the first consequence it must be provided for at all haz- 
ards, even if constipation be entailed. The inevitable 
obedience to this necessity of the system to be nourished, 



STARCH FOOD RETAINED TOO LONG. 347 

and of all starch foods to be retained within the system 
an unnaturally protracted period before their nourish- 
ment can be extracted, constitutes an additional reason 
why cereals and starch foods necessarily tend to consti- 
pation. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS. 

If the anatomy of the human organism be studied, 
the mind is filled with wonder and admiration at the 
beautiful adaptation of means to ends which it displays. 
The most elaborate machinery which has been invented 
and perfected by the mind and hand of man pales into 
insignificance when compared with the intricacy and 
harmonious working of the parts of this living machine. 
The human body is said to be a microcosm of the 
universe. Certain it is that as it becomes better under- 
stood, there are seen in its workings more and more 
illustrations of the sciences with which the human mind 
has become acquainted. The processes of digestion 
furnish the most interesting illustrations of the science 
of chemistry ; and the manner in which the assimilative 
elements of food find their way into the circulation 
reveals a most wonderful contrivance. In the peristaltic 
movements is seen an illustration of consummate skill in 
the science of mechanics. In the circulation of the 
blood the enormous amount of labor performed by that 
most marvelous of all engines, the human heart, often 
has been pointed out, and is a matter with which most 
readers are familiar. The extraordinary provision by 
which the returning venous blood is converted into the 
pure arterial fluid is a source of never-ceasing admira- 
tion. The office and function of the millions of pores 
of the skin is a contrivance of surprising ingenuity. 



FRUIT ALWAYS HARMONIOUS. 249 

The provision of nature for healing wounds is mar- 
velous, and the harmonious co-operation of the mani- 
fold forces of the human body, all working toward the 
conservation and continuance of life and vigor, fills the 
mind with wonder. 

If one undertakes the labyrinthine study of astron- 
omy, and grasps the mighty spaces of the universe, 
filled with suns and systems of planets in perpetual 
motion, all working in harmonious relation, again the 
mind is filled with inexpressible admiration at the ex- 
tent of the harmonies of the universe. The same is 
true in a degree as regards all the sciences. 

The philosopher who will give this subject adequate 
attention easily will be convinced that all truth is homo- 
geneous ; that all its parts agree with all other parts ; in 
a word, that truth is always in agreement and accord 
with itself. In preceding chapters we have briefly ad- 
verted to the proofs of the contention that bread, cereals, 
pulses, and vegetables are unwholesome food for man. 
The proofs there adduced are scientific, and are believed 
to be unassailable ; and upon these proofs it would per- 
haps be well enough to rest our case. But believing as 
we do in the reign of immutable and universal law — that 
the universe and all it contains were built in accordance 
with one infinite plan, and every part of this creation is 
in harmonious relation with all other parts — we desire 
to point out some additional reasons for asking the 
reader to acquiesce in the above contention. 

It is hoped that the underlying thought of this brief 
chapter may be considered as a preface to each of the suc- 
ceeding chapters denominated "Confirmatory Proofs." 



CHAPTER V. 
CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— ROWBOTHAM. 

We have come into possession of an old and rare 
pamphlet of less than ioo pages which is pregnant with 
striking scientific facts and philosophical deductions, and 
is remarkably pertinent to the main contention that 
bread, cereals, and pulses are unwholesome foods for 
man. It consists of " an inquiry into the cause of nat- 
ural death, or death from old age; and develops an 
entirely new and certain method of preserving active 
and healthy life for an extraordinary period ;" written by 
one S. Rowbotham, author of an essay on Human Par- 
turition, etc. ; and it was published by Abel Heywood, 
Manchester, in 1845. We are informed that Mr. Row- 
botham practiced medicine in Stockport some fifty years 
since. According to the English custom among sur- 
geons, he did not assume the title of doctor. His writ- 
ings give inherent proof of his culture and ability. The 
following is taken from the preface : 

' ' Let it not be said that the life of man cannot be 
prolonged to many times the present period of his exist- 
ence, because it is not so ; as it was said that traveling 
by steam could never be accomplished, because passen- 
gers and luggage had been carried so long only by 
coaches and pack-horses. It does not follow that be- 
cause a thing is not, or has not been, that it therefore 
cannot be. Yet this is the common mode of reasoning 
adopted by the world ; this alone has been sufficient to 
bring down ridicule, and even punishment and death, 



A PLEA FOR PROGRESS. 251 

upon those who have ventured to propose anything out 
of the common path, even though it has ultimately been 
the source of great delight to the persecutors them- 
selves. Human improvement, and progression toward 
a better state of existence, will ever be retarded if dis- 
coveries and inventions are to be judged in such a 
foolish, unbecoming manner. Let the groundwork of 
every new subject be examined, and if found to be cor- 
rect in principle — if truth be at the foundation — what 
has the world to fear from consequences ? Are we so 
far wedded to old notions and practices, even though 
they constitute a very personification of falsehood and 
misery, that we are afraid of truth, and tremble lest it 
make us happier ? " 

The following quotations are taken consecutively 
from the various chapters of this valuable work : 

' ' The solid earthy matter which by gradual accum- 
ulation in the body brings on ossification, rigidity, de- 
crepitude, and death, is principally phosphate of lime, or 
bone matter; carbonate of lime, or common chalk, and 
sulphate of lime, or plaster of Paris, with, occasionally, 
magnesia, and other earthy substances . . . . 

' i We have seen that a process of consolidation begins 
at the earliest period of existence, and continues without 
interruption until the body is changed from a compara- 
tively fluid, elastic, and energetic state, to a solid, 
earthy, rigid, inactive condition, which terminates in 
death — that infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old 
age, and decrepitude, are but so many different condi- 
tions of the body or stages of the process of consolida- 
tion or ossification — that the only difference in the body 
between old age and youth, is the greater density, 
toughness, and rigidity, and the greater proportion of 
calcareous earthy matter which enters into its composi- 
tion. The question now arises, what is the scource of 
the calcareous earthy matter which thus accumulates in 
the system ? It seems to be regarded as an axiom, that 
all the solids of the body are continually built up and 
renewed from the blood. If so, everything which these 
solids contain is. derived from the blood ; the solids con- 



252 WHY COMMON SALT IS HARMFUL. 

tain phosphates and carbonate of lime, which are there- 
fore derived from the blood, in which, as already shown, 
these earthy substances are invariably found to a greater 
01 less extent. The blood is renewed from the chyle ; 
which is always found upon analysis to contain the same 
earthy substances as the blood . and the solids. The 
chyle is renewed from chyme ; and ultimately from the 
food and drink. The food and drink, then, which nour- 
ish the system, must, at the same time, be the primary 
source of the calcareous earthy matter which enters into 
the composition of the chyme, the chyle, and the blood ; 
and which is ultimately deposited in all the tissues, 
membranes, vessels, and solids of the body — producing 
old age, decrepitude, and natural death. . . . 

" Common table salt, which is used in the preparation 
of almost every kind of food, and along with many of 
our meals, contains a fearfully large amount of calcareous 
earthy matter ; and is productive of very great mischief 
to the animal economy. . . . 

. "Many elaborate articles have been written, and 
some by very learned philosophers, to account for the 
declared absolute necessity for the use of salt in carrying 
on the general functions of the body. But this supposed 
necessity for the use of salt is merely an opinion derived 
from some of the many theories held in the present day 
to account for the different phenomena connected with 
organization and life. There is no foundation in fact 
for such an opinion. Whole tribes and nations of power- 
ful, active persons are known to have subsisted without 
even the knowledge of salt. The author of these re- 
marks, and several of his friends, have lived without 
salt more than two years without any injurious conse- 
quences, but, on the contrary, with considerable advan- 
tage. There cannot be a doubt that if persons who have 
been in the habit of consuming salt freely should sud- 
denly abandon its use, much evil might arise, just as it 
might by any other change of habits ; but if the change 
is made by degrees, and the old articles of diet gradually 
removed by the substitution of new ones, such changes 
may be wrought in the body without injury as would 
appear at first sight incredible. 



BREAD THE STAFF OF DEATH. 253 

' ' Bread (from wheaten flour), when considered in 
reference to the amount of nutritious matter it contains, 
may with justice be called the staff of life ; but in regard 
to the amount of earthy matter, we may with equal 
justice pronounce it the ' staff of death.' 

' ' Cheese contains a small proportion of earthy matter 
and is very nutritious. It bears a strong resemblance to 
the gluten of wheat, and may be eaten to great advan- 
tage with fruits and fresh garden vegetables, but should 
not be taken with bread. The latter combination is 
very dry and indigestible. . . . 

' * Butter is the oily part of milk, and is much used as 
an article of diet. Although it is considered an animal 
product, consisting of butyrine, oleine, stearine, and 
butyric acid, some vegetables yield a substance very 
analogous to it. ' In the interior of Africa,' Mr. Park 
informs us, ' there is a tree much resembling the Ameri- 
can oak, producing a nut in appearance very like an 
olive. The kernel of this nut, by boiling in water, 
affords a kind of butter, which is whiter, firmer, and of 
a richer flavor than any he ever tasted made from cow's 
milk, and will keep without salt the whole year. The 
natives call it Shea Toulon, or tree butter. Large quan- 
tities of it are made every season.' Butter of cocoa, and 
palm oil are other vegetable specimens. The milk of 
sheep produces the greatest proportion of butter ; after 
the sheep, the goat and the cow give the largest 
amount. "... 

' ' Spring water contains an amount of earthy ingre- 
dients which is fearful to contemplate. It certainly 
differs very much in different districts and at various 
depths ; but it has been calculated that water of an aver- 
age quality contains so much carbonate and other com- 
pounds of lime, that a person drinking an average 
quantity each day will, in forty years, have taken as 
much into the body as would form a pillar of solid chalk 
or marble as large as a good-sized man. So great is the 
amount of lime in spring water, that the quantity taken 
daily would alone be sufficient to choke up the system, 
so as to bring on decrepitude and death long before we 
arrived at twenty years of age, were it not for the kid- 



254 CAUSE OF PREMATURE OLD AGE. 

neys and other secreting organs throwing it off in con- 
siderable quantities. These organs, however, only dis- 
charge a portion of this matter ; for instance, supposing 
ten parts to be taken during a day, eight or nine may 
be thrown out, and one or two lost somewhere in the 
body. This process continuing day after day and year 
after year, the solid matter at length accumulates, until 
the activity and flexibility of childhood become lost in 
the enfeebled rigidity of what is then called, though very 
erroneously, 'old age.' A familiar instance of earthy 
deposition and incrustation from water is observed in a 
common tea-kettle, or steam boiler. Every housewife 
knows that a vessel which is in constant use will soon 
become * furred up, ' or plastered on the bottom and 
sides with a hard, stony substance. Four and five 
pounds weight of this matter have been known to col- 
lect in twelve months. The reader must not mislead 
himself by thinking that because so much lime is 
found in a tea-kettle, the watei aftei boiling is there- 
fore free from lime. It is true boiling water does cause 
a little carbonate of lime to precipitate, but the bulk of 
the sediment is left from that portion of the water only 
which is driven off as steam, or boiled away. This can 
easily be ascertained by testing the water both before 
and after boiling. It will be found to contain earthy 
particles, however long the boiling may continue. Filter- 
ing it is also of no use ; for this only removes what may 
be floating or mechanically mixed in the water ; whereas 
the earthy matter here spoken of is held in solution. So 
that spring water, clear and transparent as it may appear, 
is nevertheless charged with a considerable amount of 
solid choking-up matter, and is therefore in any form 
unfit, or at least is not the best suited for internal use. 
The only means whereby it can be rendered perfectly 
pure and fit for unlimited consumption is distillation. A 
very simple apparatus might be attached to a kitchen 
fire so as to be of very little trouble, and yet to grad- 
ually distill as much water as would be required for a 
family. There cannot be a doubt that distilling the 
water intended for tea, coffee, soup, and other internal 
purposes, even without any other change in diet, would 



SUBSTITUTE FOR DISTILLED WATER. 255 

diminish disease and add many years to our exist- 
ence. 

"A good substitute for distilled water may be had in 
rain, or snow or hail. If a large sheet was suspended by 
the four corners in an open yard or field, and a stone or 
other weight placed in the center so as to give it some- 
what the form of a funnel, the rain or melting snow 
would run to the center and might be caught in any ves- 
sel for the purpose. This would be almost equal in 
purity to distilled water. If this cannot be done, clear 
rain water filtered might be used, although it is liable to 
become charged with earthy and other substances in 
passing over the house-tops. 

1 ' There are many places where the spring water is 
so very hard (which quality of hardness is owing to the 
amount of sulphate of lime and other earthy substances) 
that many strangers are unable to use the water beyond a 
few days without suffering greatly from gravel and other 
disorders. Dr. Thomson, in his ' Materia Medica,' p. 
1047, savs : * The abundance of this earthy salt (sulphate 
of lime) in the water of Paris, and in the waters of many 
parts of Switzerland, produces uncomfortable feeling to 
strangers who first visit these places. It is also said to 
produce calculus complaints in the inhabitants. In weak 
and irritable stomachs hard spring water causes an un- 
easy sensation of weight at the stomach, and when long 
used as a daily beverage, produces a degree of dyspepsia, 
to which we must attribute the calculus deposits which 
Dr. Percival and others have observed to be common in 
places where hard water is drunk.' Again, at page 
105 1, containing his remarks on water as an ailment, he 
observes : ' No water which contains so much foreign 
matter as to place it within the class of mineral waters 
can be employed as an ordinary diluent ; and even hard 
or well water when daily used proves injurious. This 
fact is well known to horse jockeys, who when they are 
desirous to sell a horse to advantage, give him either 
spring water or water which has been boiled for drink ; 
well knowing that the use of hard water makes his coat 
rough.' In these cases we have at least instances of the 
influence of drink containing earthy matter increasing 



256 



EXPERIMENTS UPON FOWLS. 



the formation of calculi, and even affecting- the skin. 
These effects do not arise unless the earthy substances 
are taken into the body with the drink. 

* ' Three common fowls were fed fourteen days upon 
a mixture of equal parts of wheat, oats and barley, with 
hard spring water to drink ; the amount of earthy matter 
in these four articles is represented in the table of diet by 
the numbers respectively 220, 1 18, 65, and 10 ; the average 
of which is 9 1 . In the fourteen days the number of eggs 
from the whole was 28. The shells from which weighed 
one ounce, two drams, one scruple, and fifteen grains, or 
635 grains. The shells were then analyzed, and found to 
contain 93 per cent, of earthy matter ; and gelatine and 
water 7 per cent. The same fowls were then fed four- 
teen days upon cooked potatoes, greens, fish, and flesh, 
about equal parts, with filtered rain water to drink. 
The numbers representing these articles are, potatoes 90, 
greens 6, fish 18, flesh 26, and rain water o; the average 
of which is 28. In the fourteen days the number of 
eggs was 27. The shells from which weighed seven 
drachms and a half, or 460 grains, which for 28 would be 
477 grains; being a difference of 158 grains, or one- 
fourth less. The shells were analyzed and found to con- 
tain 82 per cent, earthy salts, and 18 per cent, gelatine 
and water, being a difference of 1 1 per cent, in the 
amount of earth, and 1 1 per cent, in the amount of gela- 
tine, &c. These results will be perceived by giving 
them in a tabular form : 



Kind of Food. 



Amount 
of Earth 
in each. 



Average 
Amount 



Period 
of 

Feeding. 



No. of 
Eggs- 



Weight 

of 
Shells. 



Composition. 



Earthy Gelatine 
Matter. & Water 



Dif- 
ference. 



Wheat 

Oats 

Barley 

Hard or Spring Water 

Potatoes 

Greens , 

Fish 

Flesh 

Rain- Water 



220 "I 
118 

10 J 

90] 

A 



14 days 



14 days 



635 grs. 



460 grs. 
or for 
28 eggs 
477 grs. 



Per Ct. 

93 



Per Ct. 

7 



' ' The fowls were then fed as at first, and again a 
corresponding difference was found in the character of 
the shells. 



UPON A DOG, HORSE, AND MAN. 257 

" A dog that had always lived in the ordinary way, 
on bread, bones, meat, &c, was bled, and the blood 
analyzed. It was found to contain 14 per cent, of phos- 
phate and carbonate of lime ; the urine 1.5; and the 
excrements 2.75 per cent. The dog was then fed 14 
days on flesh, potatoes, fruits (of which it was very 
fond), and distilled water. The blood was then found to 
contain 9 per cent, of phosphate and carbonate of lime ; 
the urine. 75 percent., and the excrements 1.5 per cent., 
being a diminution of 5 per cent, in the blood, .75 in 
the urine, and 1.25 in the excrements. At the end of 
this period the dog was fed in the ordinary way for a 
month, the blood being then found to contain 12.5 per 
cent., the urine 1.25, and the excrements 2.25 per cent ; 
being an increase again of 3.5 in the blood, ,5 in the 
urine, and .75 in the excrements. 

"A horse was fed freely upon oats, beans, meal, 
hay and spring water for several months. The blood 
was found to contain 10 per cent, of calcareous earth ; 
the urine 1.25 ; the excrements 4.5. It was then fed a 
month upon clover, grass, and such other fresh vege- 
table matters as are generally mixed with them, with a 
small portion of corn and filtered rain water (which was 
nearly as pure as distilled water) to drink. The blood 
was found to contain 7 per cent, of earthy matter ; the 
urine .75 per cent., and the excrements 2.5 per cent; 
being a decrease in the blood of 3 per cent. , . 5 in the 
urine, and 2 per cent in the excrements. 

1 ' A man who had always lived as the working classes 
generally live, upon bread, puddings, potatoes, flesh, 
cheese, milk, coffee, ale, tea, &c, was induced to submit 
himself to various experiments for several weeks : first, 
the urine voided every morning was preserved and a 
portion carefully analyzed ; the amount of earthy matter 
was found to be 3.5 per cent ; the excrements 6 per cent ; 
the saliva 1 . 5 per cent ; and the blood 8 per cent. He 
then lived upon flesh, fish, greens, and a large quantity 
of ripe fruits for a fortnight. The urine, for several 
mornings, was collected and found to contain only 2 per 
cent, of earthy matter, the excrements 4 per cent ; the 
saliva .75 per cent; and the blood only 5 per cent. He 



258 UPON MOTHER AND CHILD. 

was also induced to run until lie perspired freely, 
when as much of the sweat was scraped from the body 
as was capable of being analyzed, though not in quantity 
sufficient to be weighed. This was done both before 
and after the change of diet, and a very sensible differ- 
ence was found in the amount of earthy salts. The 
sweat obtained before the change of diet contained 
considerably more than that obtained at the end of the 
experiment ; though it was altogether so small that the 
exact amount could not be accurately ascertained. The 
man was then allowed to return to his old habits and 
food ; and at the end of a month the secretions and blood 
were again analyzed, and found to contain a much 
greater proportion of calcareous earthy matter than 
when last examined ; but not quite so much as they con- 
tained previous to the experimental change of diet being 
undertaken. The following very striking experiment 
was tried upon a female and her child, only three 
months old : a portion of the milk of the mother was 
obtained sufficient for analysis, and found to contain 
about 1.75 per cent, of phosphate and carbonate of lime. 
She then had lived upon bread, tea, coffee, flesh, potatoes 
and pastry of various kinds. A portion of the urine and 
stools of the child were obtained every day for six days ; 
when on being analyzed, the urine was found to contain 
. 5 per cent, of earthy matter, and the stools 2 per cent. 
The mother was then induced to live for a week — 
seven days — upon sago, puddings, roasted apples well 
sweetened, grapes, figs, and port and sherry wine. At 
the end of the fifth day a portion of the milk was 
examined, and found to contain .5 per cent; the urine 
and stools of the child were then collected, and repeated 
on the sixth and seventh days. On being analyzed the 
urine was found to contain only a trace of earthy matter, 
and the excrements only .25 per cent. The mother then 
quickly returned to her usual food, having found the 
change for a week rather a severe task. In about a fort- 
night the excretions of the child and the mother's milk 
were again examined, and the proportions of earthy ele- 
ments had greatly increased, approaching the amount 
found on the first analysis. 



CHILDBIRTH NATURALLY PALNLESS. 259 

1 ' At an early period of the present inquiry it oc- 
curred to me that the degree of solidity and bulk of the 
bones of a child previous to birth must depend upon 
the amount of calcareous or osseous matter in the food 
of the mother taken during gestation ; and that the pro- 
cess of fetal ossification might be so far retarded, that a 
more elastic, yielding, or india-rubber-like condition of 
the child might be secured; and the mother thus re- 
lieved of much of the sufferings and danger usually at- 
tending the periods of delivery. I was more particu- 
larly impressed with the importance of such a view, by 
the fact that in various parts of the world the females 
are comparatively free from the evils generally attend- 
ing the females of European society. 'Among the 
Araucanian Indians of South America, a mother, imme- 
diately on her delivery, takes her child, and going down 
to the nearest stream of water washes herself and it, and 
returns to the usual labours of her station.' — Steven- 
son's i Twenty Years Residence in South America,' Vol. 
9. Many accounts have been given of these and the 
females of other tribes requiring no more than ten or 
fifteen minutes for all purposes connected with their 
delivery. These easy births have generally been ac- 
counted for on the supposition of their being favored 
in physical structure and climate ; but that they are 
more favored in the first respect than our own females 
is expressly denied by Professor Lawrence, in his ' Lec- 
tures on Physiology,' who states: "The very easy labour 
of negresses, native American, and other women in 
the savage state, has been often noticed by travelers. 
This point is not explicable by any prerogative of 
physical formation, for the pelvis is rather smaller in 
these dark-coloured races than in the European and 
other white people.' That they are not favoured by cli- 
mate, is evident from the fact that the females of the 
North American tribes have as easy labours as those of 
the Central and South American. In our country also 
cases have occurred where females who have generally 
suffered severely, have occasionally given birth with 
such ease as to surprise both themselves and their 
friends. I remember speaking some time ago to a few 



260 EFFECT OF FRUIT ON PARTURITION. 

friends on this subject, when one of them related the 
case of a lady of his acquaintance who had given birth 
to four children. The first two were born with all the 
dangers and difficulties usually attending parturition, 
the third was born with the greatest ease, while the 
fourth delivery was equally difficult with the two former. 
It was quite fresh in the memory of her friends, that 
from an early period, and during the whole time of ges- 
tation of the third child, she was excessively fond of 
oranges, limes, and even lemons, which she took in 
such abundance that she required very little of any 
other kind of food. Her desire for these fruits was 
so very great that, although her husband and those 
around her continually remonstrated, and enticed her 
to leave them off for fear of injuring herself, she con- 
tinued to live almost entirely upon them. To her sur- 
prise, and that of her friends, however, she gave birth 
with so much more ease and safety, that notwithstand- 
ing the supposed impropriety of so doing, she was able, 
and did resume her ordinary duties in a few days after- 
wards. During the pregnancy of the first, second and 
fourth children, she lived in the ordinary way. . . . 

* ' These considerations led me to the conclusion, that 
our civilized females might so adapt their food during 
gestation, that they might escape the suffering which 
endangers their lives, as well as the females of savage 
tribes. In the month of January, 1841, I induced a 
female who had suffered severely on two former occa- 
sions, and who was now a third time full seven months 
advanced in gestation, to try an experiment under my 
directions. She commenced by eating an apple or an 
orange, or both, the first thing in a morning, and again 
at night. This was continued a few days, until she 
found she could take more without inconvenience. At 
breakfast she took several roasted apples with a very 
small quantity of wheaten bread and butter, and one 
small cup of coffee. During the forenoon she took sev- 
eral oranges or apples. To dinner she had a little fresh 
animal food, with roasted apples or apple sauce, and a 
potato or green vegetables (no bread or pastry of any 
kind), sometimes a few boiled or roasted onions, and 



ANOTHER STRIKING EXAMPLE. 261 

always took plenty of pickles and vinegar. In the after- 
noon she again partook freely of oranges, apples, grapes, 
or such other fruits as could be obtained. At tea she 
proceeded as at breakfast — a little bread, tea, and a 
number of roasted apples. Supper, sago boiled in milk, 
mixed sometimes with currants, raisins, or cut apples. 
She continued this course for about six weeks ; w\hen to 
her surprise and satisfaction her legs and feet, which 
when she began were considerable swelled and painful, 
and the veins, which were very large and full, almost 
ready to burst, had returned to their former state ; and 
she became altogether as light and active — or more so, 
than she was previous to her pregnancy. She was often 
seen to run up and down a flight of more than twenty 
stairs with apparently as much ease as any other person, 
and certainly with less fatigue than she could have done 
at any former period within her recollection ; such an 
influence had the fruit diet in rendering the body light 
and buoyant, and the spirits active and cheerful. Her 
health altogether became excellent — in fact she many 
times declared that she never felt so light and healthy 
before ; not an ache or pain of any kind was she troubled 
with, up to the night of her delivery. Even her breasts, 
which at the time she commenced the experiment were 
exceedingly tender and painful, became, and continued 
entirely free from pain. Between ten and eleven o'clock 
on the evening of the third of March, she, for the first 
time, expressed her belief that her time was come; 
about twelve the surgeon was sent for, he came about 
half-past, at a quarter to one the delivery was safely 
effected, and at one o'clock he left the room. Had she 
not been influenced by custom, she might have resumed 
her usual duties immediately after her delivery ; or, at 
all events, next day. Indeed, the prejudices which exist 
upon this subject, and the fear of violating the notions 
of propriety of her friends and neighbours, alone retained 
her.* However, on the fourth morning, such was her 

*" If there is one thing more than another which betrays a mind totally 
ignorant of the laws and purposes of Nature, it is the abuse which is heaped 
upon females, in proportion as they escape the dangers and sufferings of 
childbirth. Many otherwise intelligent persons do not blush to avow their 



262 'THE MORE FRUIT AND LESS BREAD THE BETTER. 

condition, that she left her bed, washed and dressed 
herself and the child, and commenced her ordinary 
family pursuits. She had no assistance from medicine. 
It may be stated as a further proof of the influence of 
diet upon the fetus, and in diminishing the difficulties 
of parturition, that the same female, during two former 
periods of preganancy, subsisted very much on bread, 
puddings, pies, and all kinds of pastry, having an idea, 
like many others, that solid food of this kind was necess- 
ary to support and nourish the fetus* and she suffered 
very greatly in delivery. On this occasion, with only 
six weeks' adoption of a contrary course, she secured for 
herself a more easy labour than is ever perhaps experi- 
enced by females in this or other civilized countries. 

1 ' This experiment has proved the truth of the con- 
clusion, that in proportion as a female subsists during 
gestation upon aliment free from calcareous earthy mat- 
ter, will she retard the consolidation of the child and 
thus prevent pain and danger in delivery. Hence the 
following may be given as an axiom for the guidance of 
females at these particular times. The more ripe fruits 
and the less of other kinds of food, but particularly of 
bread or pastry of any kind, they consume during preg- 
nancy, the less difficulty will they have in labour. . . . 

' ' The urine of a female when pregnant contains 
less earthy matter than when she is not so. It is no 
doubt taken up in the formation of the bones of the 
fetus. 



belief that these miseries are really essential to the love of offspring — that 
females would have little or no regard for their young, did they not suffer 
in giving them birth. That a woman should suffer severely at such a time, 
is spoken of as a wise and inevitable law of nature ; and those who escape 
with the least amount of danger are taunted with being most analogous 
with the beasts that perish. It is to be hoped, however, that ere the close 
of the nineteenth century, such mischievous and foolish prepossessions 
will have ceased to disgrace mankind. For, surely, science and careful ob- 
servation of causes and effects will enable us, sometime or other, to dis- 
cover the sources of physical evil, and avoid not only one, but all the ills 
that flesh is heir to. Else all our labours in seeking truth and happiness are 
in vain ; these being the grand object of our exertions and existence. 

* " It is quite right to suppose that nutritious food is necessary to support 
and strengthen the fetus ; but the nutritious and the solid earthy matter 



EFFECT OF DIET ON TEETH. 263 

' * As age advances, or rather, as the consolidation of 
the body increases, the composition of the teeth grad- 
ually changes ; the amount of earthy matter increasing, 
and the gelatine, or animal glue, diminishing. Some- 
times the amount of earthy matter becomes so great, and 
the cartilage, or gelatine, which holds it together so little, 
that the teeth, even in young persons, will begin to 
crumble and wear away like a piece of chalk ; and this 
very often without the individual feeling much pain. 
Persons thus affected I have always found to be great 
consumers of bread, puddings, pies, and other flour prep- 
arations, all of which contain a large amount of phos- 
phate of lime. By a course of diet of a different nature, 
I have caused several persons to succeed in arresting the 
progress of decay, and fixing the remaining teeth firmly 
and usefully in the gums. 

' ' The broken limbs of old people do not unite so 
readily as those of children and persons in the prime of 
life ; because in advanced age, although there is more 
bony matter in the system, the, vessels which should 
convey it to the injured part being obstructed the union 
cannot take place. 

' ' The periods called puberty and maturity are sim- 
ply conditions or states of the body, depending on cer- 
tain degrees of arterial ossification. Both which may be 
brought on sooner or later, according to the intensity of 
the consolidating, or choking up-process. It is possible 
to force a child through the various stages of life much 
earlier than is usual, or to delay them for an extraordi- 
nary period, by simply regulating the amount of solid 
matter in its food. Children, when overworked, as 
in some manufacturing districts, necessarily devour a 
greater amount of solid food than would otherwise be 
sufficient ; they consequently deposit the greater amount 
of earthy matter which that food contains in the system ; 
the capillary vessels are sooner obstructed to those de- 
grees which constitute puberty and manhood, and thus 

in food are very different substances. Wheaten flour, on account of it 
containing so much earthy matter, is the most dangerous article a female 
can live upon when pregnant. The other grains are bad enough, but better 
than wheat. 



264 EFFECT OF DIET ON COMPLEXION AND OLD AGE. 

they cease to grow, and become men and women (such as 
they are) at an earlier age than those around them who 
have been placed under different circumstances. Chil- 
dren who are not overworked, but who are great eaters 
of solid grain food, arrive at these states much sooner 
than others of different habits. The sooner an individ- 
ual comes to maturity, the sooner, if the same habits 
are continued, will he come to the periods of old age, 
decrepitude, and death. There seems to be no excep- 
tion to this principle either in the animal or vegetable 
world. So true is it, that the average age to which any 
species of organized beings exist may be almost deter- 
mined by knowing the time at which they arrive at 
maturity, or begin to propagate. 

" As manhood is attained, the skin begins to be in- 
crusted with a plaster-like substance which accumulates 
as age advances. If the linen of some persons, after 
being worn a few days, be well shaken, a quantity of 
dust-like flour will come from it. If the body be rubbed 
well with a dry, hard brush or cloth, the same flour-like 
substance will be obtained. This dust, when analyzed, 
is found to consist of gelatine, combined with earthy or 
bony matter. That it is originally derived from the 
food or drink, is evident from the fact that its presence 
on the skin is in proportion to the amount and quality of 
the food consumed. Aged people, for instance, having 
consumed through a period of sixty or eighty years an 
immense quantity of aliment, and therefore deposited a 
large amount of earthy matter into the system, are in- 
crusted to a much greater extent than young persons. 
Old people of the same age also differ much in this 
respect; those who have taken freely of grain foods 
always being much worse than such as have been more 
sparing in their habits, and have consumed less flour 
preparations, and more fresh vegetables, fruits, fish, 
flesh, etc. 

" Women generally eat less food, and labor and per- 
spire less than men, and are therefore less incrusted with 
calcareous matter. Their skins are much smoother and 
more pliant, and on this, as well as on other accounts, 
they may be justly styled the ' softer sex.' In ad- 



CEREAL FOOD INDUCES EARLY DEATH. 265 

vanced age, however, even they are more or less af- 
fected with this external impurity. For the same rea- 
sons we observe that the skin of a child is much softer 
and cleaner than that of an adult. This collection of 
gelatinous and calcareous matter upon the surface of the 
body is highly injurious to health ; inasmuch as it pre- 
vents the elimination of the superfluous vapours and 
gases which the skin is alone calculated to discharge. 
It is, in fact, a part of that general ossification of the 
system which is the source of disease and ultimately of 
death itself. It ought very forcibly to remind us of the 
absolute necessity of keeping the body clean, not only 
by frequent washing, but by actual grooming or scrub- 
bing with a rough cloth, or a close, strong brush; or 
what is perhaps the best of all, the horse-hair gloves 
and belts which are sold for this purpose by every re- 
spectable chemist in the kingdom. As the earthy mat- 
ter which often incrusts a common tea-kettle is depos- 
ited in consequence of the water which held it in solu- 
tion being converted into steam and driven off ; and as 
therefore the more the water contains, the more will be 
the quantity deposited in the vessel, and the sooner will 
it become incrusted or ' ' furred up' ; so, in the same 
manner, the fluids of the body constantly passing off in 
the shape of sensible and insensible perspiration, or in 
other words, changing into vapour and gas — boiling away, 
as it were — the more we eat and drink of substances con- 
taining calcareous earth, the more will enter into the 
composition of the blood, the more will be deposited in- 
ternally as well as on the skin ; and therefore the sooner 
will the whole system become ossified, or filled or choked 
up, and the sooner will rigidity or decrepitude and 
death take place. 

" Persons of a dull, cadaverous appearance, with 
harsh, rough skins, who are thin and bony, and continu- 
ally troubled with some complaint or other, I have 
always found to be greatly attached to food of a solid, 
earthy nature, such as bread, puddings, pies, tarts, 
cakes and flour preparations in general. I do not mean 
to assert that such persons never partake of much of 
other substances, for they are generally fond of rich, 



266 FRUIT AND MEAT PROMOTE HEALTH AND LIFE. 

strong food as well ; but that bread and pastry composed 
of oats or other grain constitute the basis of their diet. 
The same may be said of such as are troubled with bad 
teeth, ulcers, pimples and blotches of every kind, and 
who are susceptible to headaches, colds, etc. ; and more 
particularly is this the case when the individuals are of 
costive habits of body, because then much injurious 
matter is retained, that would otherwise have been 
discharged. On the contrary, those who are bright and 
lively in appearance, who have clear and shining skins, full in 
fleshy bones sjnall and flexible ', seldom troubled with disease of 
any kind, and who are generally stirring and animated, I 
have always found to partake more of fresh vegetables, 
greens, fruits and animal food, fish, fowl, eggs, and all kinds 
of albuminous and saccharine substances, * and who cared but 
little for gross, solid, grain food, such as flour in its 
various forms. 

' ' Heavy, clumsy persons, whose movements — when 
they do move — are stiff and awkward, are always great 
consumers of solid food, especially of bread and pastry 
of all kinds; some of such persons I have known, who 
could and did devour half a quartern loaf at a meal, and 
who always preferred a pie with a crust approaching the 
thickness of the rim of a coach- wheel, to one of a more 
delicate and decent construction. 

' ' Among children and young persons too, it may be 
seen that the dull, heavy, ill-tempered ones are mostly 
great eaters of solid grain foods ; while the more active 
and lively are less anxious for food of a solid character, 
but mostly fond of light, fluid, and saccharine substances. 
If the reader will look around him, and inquire into 
these matters for himself, he will soon be convinced of 
the truth of these remarks. If, for instance, he should 
at any time observe a big, clumsy, stupid lad, whose 
greatest pleasure consists in doing all kinds of mischief, 
and in teasing and tormenting everyone about him, 
upon inquiry it will certainly be found that he is fonder 
of eating and destroying than producing anything in 
return. If he could be seen at his meals he would ap- 
pear more like a hungry wolf than a human being, 

* The italics are ours. — E.D. 



HISTORICAL PROOFS. 267 

devouring all that comes in his way, yet never being 
satisfied. . . . 

''These facts and many others which could be ad- 
vanced all tend to support and prove the position, that 
the food and drink alone are the source of the calcareous 
earthy matter which is gradually deposited in the body, 
and which by degrees brings on a state of induration, 
rigidity and consequent decrepitude, which ends in a 
total cessation of consciousness, or death. We have 
seen that different kinds of food and drink contain these 
earthy elements in different proportions ; and we cannot 
avoid the conclusion, that the more we subsist upon such 
articles as contain the largest amount, the sooner shall 
we choke up and die ; and the more we live upon such 
substances as are comparatively free, the longer will 
health, activity, and life continue. 

1 ' Proofs that the duration of life is proportionate to 
the amount of earthy substances presented in the food 
and drink: 

"In Pinnock's edition of Goldsmith's History of 
England, the following note appears : ' It is stated by 
Plutarch that the ancient Britons were so temperate 
that they only began to grow old when a hundred and 
twenty years of age. Their arms, legs and thighs were 
always left naked, and for the most part were painted 
blue. Their food consisted almost exclusively of acorns, 
berries and water.' 

"Other historians mention fish, fowls, and the fruit, 
leaves, and roots of the forest, as occasionally forming 
portions of their diet. These articles contain a much 
smaller amount of earthy matter than the farinaceous, 
or grain food, used in the present day, and their absti- 
nence from these grains accounts for their extraordinary 
longevity. Such food must also produce a wonderful 
degree of activity and strength. Dr. Henry, in his 
History of England, states that they were remarkable 
for their ' fine athletic form, for the great strength of 
their body, and for being swift of foot. They excelled 
in running, swimming, wrestling, climbing, and all 
kinds of bodily exercise ; they were patient of pain, toil, 
and sufferings of various kinds ; were accustomed to bear 



268 SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. HERODOTUS. 

fatigues, to bear hunger, cold, and all manner of hard- 
ships. They could run into morasses up to their necks, 
and live there for days without eating.' 

' ' The food of the inhabitants of New Zealand and 
many of the South Sea Islands consists of flesh, fish, 
fowls, eggs, fruits, roots, berries, leaves, and sometimes 
sea- weeds, all which contain, on the average, a com- 
paratively small amount of earthy substances; and we 
learn from the account of those who have visited and 
lived among these people, that often they are healthy 
and energetic beyond the age of ioo years. They are 
said to be able to go to war, to follow the chase, to 
obtain a full supply of their wants by hunting, fishing, 
and roaming the forest ; and in short to be equal to the 
finest young men in Europe, long after they have 
reached ioo years of age. A gentleman who has spent 
seven years among them, declares that he has known 
many who could not remember their ages to within 
ten or twenty years. 

" Herodotus gives us an account of a people of 
Ethiopia, who, because of their longevity, were called 
Macrobians. Their diet consisted entirely of roasted 
flesh and milk ; both which contain a small amount of 
earthy matter; and they were remarkable for their 
1 beauty, and the large proportion of their body, in each 
of which they surpassed other men/ They lived to 
1 20 years old, and some to a much longer period. 

' ' The ancient Gymnosophists of India subsisted en- 
tirely upon fruits and fresh vegetables. It was a part of 
their religious ordinances to eat nothing but what the 
sun had ripened, and made fit for food without any fur- 
ther preparation. This diet contains a very small pro- 
portion of earthy elements; and it is said that these 
people were perfectly healthy, and lived to 150 and 200 
years. . . . 

' ' It was a doctrine commonly taught by the pagans of 
various parts of the world, that the Goddess of Justice, 
usually named Astrea, a daughter of Jupiter, and repre- 
sented with her eyes bound, a sword in one hand and a 
pair of scales in the other, came down from heaven 
to live with mankind during the golden age; but at 



WHY THE IRISH EXCEL THE ENGLISH. 269 

length the world became so corrupted, that she left the 
earth and returned to heaven, where she formed the con- 
stellation Virgo. She still looks down with regret upon 
the iniquities and consequent sufferings of man ; and 
whenever the world becomes virtuous, she will return 
and live among us. 

' ' The peasantry of those parts of Ireland where 
wheaten bread or any kind of grain food is scarcely ever 
tasted, but where potatoes, fish, turnips, green and fresh 
vegetables generally form their principal diet, all which 
things contain a moderate amount of earthy matter, are 
proverbial for health, activity, and general longevity. 

"The English peasantry consume a much larger 
quantity of solid grain food, as bread and pastry of all 
kinds, than the Irish, and are greatly inferior both in 
health, activity, duration of life, and in temper and dis- 
position. Although the same external conditions, fresh 
air and exercise, and much better clothing and lodging 
are enjoyed by the English, they are more bony, rigid, 
clumsy and stupid than the Irish. Neither have they 
as much generosity, attachment, or affection ; for it can 
be demonstrated that the moral qualities of the people 
depend greatly upon their habits of living — upon the 
nature of their diet.* 

' ' Fishermen and others near the sea, who live prin- 
cipally upon fish, with a large proportion of potatoes and 
green vegetables, enjoy good health and live to consider- 
able ages. 

' ' Writers on natural history inform us that the wild 
hog lives free from disease to the age of 300 years. Its 
food consists of fruits, chestnuts, acorns, roots, and grass, 
with grains occasionally. This food contains little 
earthy matter. 

1 ' The swan is said to attain the age of three hundred 
years. Its food consists of fish, worms, grass, weeds, 
and fresh-water mussels, or swan mussels, as they are 
called. This food contains a small proportion of earthy 
elements. 

"Rooks and crows live to a great age, more than a 
hundred years ; and they feed, the latter on fish, carrion, 
and putrid offal, the former on worms, fresh-water 



2 7 o WILD HOG, AND LONG-LIVED BIRDS. 

mussels, and other shell-fish, grubs, snails, caterpillars, 
and some times grains and seeds. This food is not 
very earthy. 

" When crows find the shells too hard for their bills, 
they carry them up to a considerable height in the air, 
when, by dropping them down upon a rock or stone, the 
shells are fractured, and they can then easily pick out 
the fish. 

' < The raven, hawk, goose, and other birds of similar 
habits are known to live for a long period ; their food 
consists of flesh, fish, worms, and all kinds of garbage ; 
which contains but little earthy matter. 

1 ' The pelican lives to .more than a hundred years of 
age. Its food is principally fish. 

"The heron, crane, sea-gull, and others of a like 
nature live to great ages. Their food is chiefly fish. 

1 * The eagle is said to attain a great age ; Tacitus says 
to 500 years. Its food consists of flesh and fish, which 
contain a much less amount of earthy ingredients than 
the flour food of human species. 

" Some of the parrot species are believed to live in 
their native state for five and six hundred, and even 
seven hundred years ; and their food to consist princi- 
pally of the pulp of fruits, which is also free from earthy 
matter. 

' ' Common fowls, the sparrow, tame pigeons, singing 
and other domesticated birds, that feed upon bread, 
seeds, and grain of different kinds, which food is highly 
charged with earthy substances, live only from ten to 
twenty years. 

' ' The elephant subsists upon fruits, flowers, meadow- 
plants, and the leaves and tender shoots of trees — partic- 
ularly the banana, cocoa palm and sago trees, all of 
which contain a small proportion of calcareous earth, 
and this animal lives to a great age. 

' ' The horse, cow, pig, dog, and other domesticated 
animals subsist upon food which contains a larger 
amount of earth than their natural food or that which 
they choose in a wild state, and we perceive a corre- 
sponding difference in the periods of their existence. It 
is well known to carters and others who feed and drive 



ELEPHANT, HORSE, DOG, AND MONKEY. 271 

horses, that corn food, although it makes them plump 
and fleshy, soon renders them rigid, and materially 
shortens their existence. It is a common remark, when 
a horse is stiff and lifeless, ' that it is no wonder when 
we consider what a quantity of corn he has had.' 

It is customary for sportsmen, when they require 
greyhounds of unusual activity and swiftness in cours- 
ing, to give them as little solid food as possible ; and to 
feed them upon rice or sago pudding, mixed with a large 
quantity of grocer's currants. 

' ' The monkey tribes are supposed to live in their 
wild state to a considerable age c They consume a great 
deal of fruits and herbs; and they are known to eat 
e gg s > small birds, and cocoa and othei nuts. When 
brought to this country, however, their food is changed, 
and they are fed chiefly upon bread and potatoes, which 
food is veryisolid and earthy when compared with their 
natural aliment ; and however young they may be when 
brought to this country, they seldom live for more than 
five or six years. Symptoms of decrepitude rapidly 
come on, and they die of apparent old age. If the pro- 
prietors of these animals would allow them plenty of 
fruits — their natural food, they would live in this coun- 
try much longer than they do at present, notwithstand- 
ing the difference of climate, which is urged as the cause 
of their premature -death. . . . 

"The inhabitants of England, on the average, con- 
sume more animal food, fish, fowl, fresh vegetables, 
fruits, spirits, wine, ale, and other fermented drinks and 
(except in Ireland) less bread or flour in any form, than 
the people of most other nations ; the necessary conse- 
quence of which is that a less amount of earthy matter 
is consumed, the process of ossification is less rapid, and 
natural death less premature, than in places where more 
grain or flour food is consumed. The poorer classes of 
society consume a much larger quantity of bread, or 
flour, and potatoes, than the middle and higher classes, 
chiefly because their scanty means will not enable them 
to purchase more costly food. The wealthier classes use 
more animal food, fowls, fish, fresh vegetables, fruits, 
wines, and other luxuries. Mr. Cobden, M.P. for 



272 



WHY THE POOR DIE SOONER THAN THE RICH. 



Stockport, in a speech before a conference of preachers, 
at Manchester, on the 17th August, 1841, says: 'I think 
it might be said that the poorer the family the greater 
amount of bread will that family consume. It has been 
further estimated by a very important body, the hand- 
loom commission inquirers, that the average of the 
working-class families in the kingdom earn ten shillings 
a week, and of that ten shillings every workingman's 
family spends five shillings upon bread.' 

"The Rev. T. East, of Birmingham, in a speech on 
the same occasion, stated: ' In proportion to the paucity 
of the man's income, is the proportion of bread he 
consumes. For, as his wages rise, he purchases a little 
meat, and other gratifications, and the use of these 
diminish his consumption of bread.' Bread and potatoes 
constituting so large a proportion of the diet of the work- 
ing classes, and containing so large a quantity of earthy 
matter, must inevitably render them more liable to dis- 
ease and premature old age and death. And so it is 
found that the rate of mortality among the poor is much 
greater than among the rich, as the following table will 
show: 



" From the age of 25 to 40 . 
40 " 50 
50 " 60 . 
60 " 70 . 
70 " 80 . 



205 rich and 550 poor die. 
244 " 426 " 

349 " 7i8 

737 " 1501 
1489 " 2873 



1 ' From this table it appears that at every stage of 
life, up to the age of eighty, the number of poor who 
die is double that of the rich. 

" 'The Egyptians arrive at a great age. Dr. Clott 
speaks of a man whom he had seen, one hundred and 
thirty years old, without any other infirmity than cata- 
ract in one eye ; and he knows another now living, at 
one hundred and twenty- three years of age, who enjoys 
a perfectly sound state of health, and has several chil- 
dren, the eldest of whom is eighty, the second seventy- 
four, the third three years old, and the youngest only a 
few months. This man at the age of eighty-two cut 
six new teeth, which he was obliged to have immediately 



DIET OF LONG-LIVED EGYPTIANS. 273 

extracted, on account of the pain and inconvenience 
they occasioned him.' " — Foreign Quarterly. 

' ' Fruits and fresh vegetables enter largely into the 
ordinary food of the Egptians. These contain a small 
proportion of earthy substances, and must tend, by pre- 
venting the consolidation of the system, to preserve 
their health, and lengthen out their existence. 

" Women are generally more analogous to children 
in the choice of their food than men ; they also consume 
a smaller quantity, but are mostly fond of the best de- 
scription. Instead of a large amount of rough, solid food, 
they prefer a smaller proportion of aliment, and that of 
a more fluid, pulpy, and nutritious nature. It is not so 
much the quantity as the quality they care for. The 
consequence of this course is the avoidance of a large 
amount of earthy matter, and they are therefore softer 
and more flexible — less ossified than men, and require 
more time to harden, and to \ fur up ' to that degree 
which produces death ; hence women are found to live 
longer than men. . . . 

"On this principle we may at once account for the 
fact that, notwithstanding the causes of disease and dan- 
gers peculiarly incidental to females, by the census just 
taken (1841) it appears that the number of females in 
this country is above half a million greater than the 
number of males and this, too, after more than twenty 
years of comparative peace. So that this difference can- 
not be attributed to the sacrifice of male lives in war ; 
but solely, or chiefly at least, to the greater longevity of 
females; which extra longevity is the consequence of 
their being less attached to solid, earthy food. It is 
true that many women are as stout and bony, and as 
rough as men, and are as liable to premature decrepitude 
and death ; but these will always be found to eat and 
drink like men. . . . 

' ' Henry Jenkins lived to the extraordinary age of 
one hundred and sixty-nine years. He was born on the 
17th of May, 1500, at Ellerton, in Yorkshire, and died in 
1670. He assisted his father in his early years as a 
fruit-grower and market gardener. All his family were 
remarkable for longevity. An only sister of his died at 



274 EXAMPLES OF LONGEVITY. 

the age of one hundred and twenty- five, and his grand- 
mother lived to the age of one hundred and thirty-eight 
years. Old Jenkins was always a great admirer of nat- 
ure, and extremely fond of fruits, flowers, and herbs. 
It was his daily custom to rise very early, with the song 
of earliest birds, and wander through the woods or 
over hill and meadow at peep of day in quest of divers 
medicinal herbs, the study of which he was so fond of. 

"With regard to the diet of this wonderful old man, 
it was always simple, consisting mostly of cold meat and 
salads, of which he partook with water for his drink in 
moderate supplies. It was in the year 1524, during the 
reign of Henry VIII., that the hop plant was introduced 
into England from Flanders, and cultivated for the 
preparation of beer ; which Jenkins, being a great advo- 
cate for bitters, used for that purpose; and he never 
found a moderate portion of that beverage, taken once a 
day, at all disagree with him, or hurt him. He partook 
of light suppers, frequently walking out in his garden 
afterwards for a short time to promote digestion. Water 
was, however, his favourite beverage, and he usually 
drank nearly half a pint of it every morning when he 
first arose. Besides abstemiousness in the article of 
food, his general habits were regular and sober. Fol- 
lowing the directions of his mother, he always con- 
tinued the use of flannel and warm clothing, which 
had been commenced in infancy. He was robust and 
healthy to old age — a hearty, respectable, good-looking 
old man, who never knew what real illness was until a 
year or two before his death. He warded off the first 
attacks of disease by resorting, at the first appearance 
of the enemy, to defensive or preventive measures, 
never waiting to parley with the insidious foe ; and he 
always found his plan successful. 

"When Jenkins was near his 160th year, King 
Charles II., being informed of his astonishing longevity, 
expressed a desire to see him in London, and sent a 
carriage purposely to convey him thither. He preferred, 
however, to go on foot, and actually walked to the metrop- 
olis in easy stages — a distance of two hundred miles. 
On his arrival in London, the hoary patriarch was intro- 



JENKINS AND THE PATRIARCHS. 275 

duced to his majesty. The king held a long conversa- 
tion with him, and made many inquiries as to his mode 
of living; but nothing particular being observable in 
that, inquired by what means he contrived to live so 
much longer than other people. To this he replied that 
temperance and sobriety of living had been the means, 
by the blessing of God, of lengthening his days beyond 
the usual limit. The king, who was fond of dissipation 
and luxury, seemed not much pleased with some of Jen- 
kins' homely maxims, and dismissed him ; but allowed 
him a comfortable pension, which he enjoyed the re- 
mainder of his life. 

< ' In the Scriptures we are told that, for several cen- 
turies after the deluge, one hundred and twenty was 
about the average period of human life. Abraham lived 
to one hundred and seventy-five years of age ; his sons, 
Isaac and Ishmael, the former died at one hundred and 
eighty, and the latter at the age of one hundred and 
thirty-seven. Jacob lived to be one hundred and forty- 
seven years old, and his son Joseph reached one hun- 
dred and ten years of age. Long after this, Moses lived 
to be one hundred and twenty years old, " and his eye 
was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Joshua died 
at the age of one hundred and nineteen years. . . 

" It is also clear, from what has already been ad- 
vanced, that even if two persons, or two classes of per- 
sons, subsist upon the same kind of food and drink, if 
one consumes less than the other, a less amount of earthy 
matter will be taken into the system, the process of ossifi- 
cation will necessarily proceed less rapidly, and therefore 
life will be enjoyed for a longer period. A direct practi- 
cal proof of this is found in the statistics of prisons and 
workhouses. A writer in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, 
No. 366, after describing the different articles of diet 
consumed in several English and Scotch workhouses, 
proceeds in the following language : 

' ' ' It thus appears that paupers in England are fed in 
a much more liberal style than those of Scotland ; the 
former getting about thirty ounces of solids per day, in- 
cluding three ounces of the best animal food ; while the 
latter have only nineteen ounces, whereof less than two 



2'/0 



THE MORE FOOD TAKEN THE MORE DEATHS. 



are of meat, and that of the least nutritious kind. It 
now becomes of importance to learn how the paupers in 
the two countries thrive on their respective allowances, 
and here a very surprising result meets our eye. The 
deaths in the Manchester workhouse, from September 
ist, 1837, to August 31st, 1838, were 295; the average 
number of inmates being 708. In the Edinburgh Char- 
ity workhouse, during the five years preceding 1831 the 
average annual mortality among an average of 400 in- 
mates was 61 3-5, say for the sake of round numbers 62. 
Thus in the Manchester workhouse, 1 dies for every 
2 8-20, — or about 2 1-2 ; while in the Edinburgh work- 
house 1 dies for every 6 9-20, or about 6 1-2 ; the mortal- 
ity in Manchester, where the greatest amount of food is 
given, being nearly three times greater than in Edin- 
burgh.' 

* ' The same principle is confirmed by the returns of 
the Prison Discipline Society, as shown by the following 
statements : 



Weekly cost of food 












per head in the 












Wakefield House 




Amount of sickness 


of Correction, in 




in same 


place 


per 


Yorkshire, is . . .is. 


sy 2 d. 


annum 






. . . 6 per ct. 


Ditto in the County 












Jail of Suffolk . . 1 


9 


a 




(i 


10 " 


Ditto in Woodbridge 












Jail 3 


6 


n 




<< 


18 " 


Ditto in Northaller- 












ton . . . .5 


oy 2 


n 




tt 


37 " 



' ' By this we clearly perceive that sickness and dis- 
ease increase just in proportion as food increases. . . . 

' ' From the returns of the Poor Law Commissioners 
respecting the diet and mortality in sixty different 
prisons, sickness and mortality appear to increase on 
proportion as the consumption of food increases. 



Sickness. 


Deaths. 


3 per ct. 


i in 622 


18 " 


i in 320 


23 " 


1 in 266 



ABSTAINING FROM BREAD SAVES LIFE. 277 

In 20 prisons the average 

weekly consumption of 

solid food was 188 ounces. 

In 20 others the amount was 213 " 

K (< << 2I g « 

"Although we have seen by the foregoing tables. 
and other evidence, that sickness and death advance 
with an increase of solid food ; it by no means follows 
that this is applicable in the contrary direction beyond a 
certain point. It certainly would appear at first sight, 
that the less food we take the better will be our health, 
and the longer shall we live ; but when we know that 
the human body is continually wasting — that its ele- 
ments are constantly being thrown off, we shall see the 
necessity for supplying at least as much nourishment as 
will equal the amount wasted. This is the minimum 
point. Below this we cannot go without producing 
injury to the system. If we fail to take in as much 
nutriment as the body throws- off, sickness and death 
will speedily and inevitably follow. But through all 
degrees above this minimum point, we may consider it 
as an axiom that the less we eat and drink the more 
shall we retard the process of ossification ; the longer 
will it take to choke up or consolidate the body to that 
degree which constitutes old age or decrepitude ; and 
the longer shall we enjoy existence. Abstemiousness, 
so far at least as it regards the food in ordinary use, as 
bread, potatoes, and other gross, solid articles, will cer- 
tainly conduce to health and long life. . . . 

' ' The facts tend to prove that in proportion as indi- 
viduals, classes, or^ even nations subsist upon aliment 
containing the sm&est . proportion of earthy elements, 
do they prevent or retard the process of ossification, 
maintain a state of health and activity, and prolong their 
existence." 



CHAPTER VI. 
CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— DR. DE LACY EVANS. 

In a former publication, but under the same title as 
chosen for Part III. of this volume,* I have already 
qioted largely from the writings of Dr. De Lacy Evans 
in his admirable work entitled " How to Prolong Life/'f 

Dr. Evans, writing more than a third of a century 
after Mr.Rowbotham, announces substantially the same 
truths. He starts with the proposition that the ossifica- 
tion and deposit of earthy matter in the joints and tissues 
of the aged, with the resultant weakness and decrepitude, 
is not the result of old age, but that this manifestion of 
what has been mistaken for old age is the result of ossi- 
fication and the deposit of earthy matter in the system ; 
and that this deposit of earthy matter is directly traceable 
to easily avoidable errors in diet. Dr. Evans acknowl- 
edges his indebtedness to " Patriarchial Longevity," by 
" Parallax," in which he tells us " ossification as a cause 
of old age was first pointed out " ; and also his indebted- 
ness to " Records of Longevity," by Easton and Bailey; 
and to Hufeland's ''Art of Prolonging Life," edited by 
Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S. The great interest attaching to 
this subject is my excuse for the following somewhat 
lengthy extracts from Dr. Evans' book : 



* " The Natural Food of Man." By Emmet Densmore, M.D. Fowler, 
Ludgate Circus, London, E. C. Price, I shilling. 

■j- "An Inquiry into the Cause of Old Age and Natural Death, Showing 
the Diet and Agents for a Lengthened Prolongation of Existence." By 
Charles W. De Lacy Evans, M.R.C.S.E., &c, Surgeon to St. Saviour's 
Hospital, and author of several scientific works of great interest. Beilliere, 
Tyndale & Co., King William Street. Price, 5 shillings. 



THE MACROBIOTIC ART. 279 

"In every being- thoughout animated nature, from 
the most insignificant insect to the most enlightened, 
ennobled, and highly developed human being, we note 
a deeply rooted love for one possession before all others, 
and that is the possession of life. What will not a man 
give to preserve his life? What would he not give to 
prolong it? The value of riches, title, honor, power, and 
worldly prospects are as naught compared with the value 
which every sane man, however humble and even mis- 
erable, places on the preservation of his life. . . . 

"The laws of life and death, looked upon in this light, 
form the basis of a fixed science — the Macrobiotic, or 
the art of prolonging life. There is, however, a dis- 
tinction to be made between this art and the science of 
medicine, but the one is auxiliary to the other. 

' ■ There is a state of body which we term health ; 
plus or minus divergences from this path we call disease. 
The object of medicine is to guide these variations to a 
given centre of bodily equilibrium ; but the object of 
the Macrobiotic art is, by the founding of dietetic and 
other rules, on general principles, to preserve the body 
in health and thereby prolong life. 

1 ' In the present work the author has attempted to go 
beyond this, by inquiring into the causes which have a 
share in producing the changes which are observed as 
age advances, and further, by pointing out a means of 
checking them. ' He who writes or speaks or meditates 
without facts as landmarks to his understanding, is like 
a mariner cast on the wide ocean without a compass or 
rudder to his ship.' If he conceives an idea, a phantom 
of his own imagination, and attempts to make it a reality 
by accepting only those facts or phenomena which 
accord with his premature conception, ignoring those 
which contradict this shadow or idea, but which may 
nevertheless be demonstrably true, he presents a theory 
which may be incorrect, and if so, is doomed, sooner or 
later, to destruction. Although it possibly required but 
a few hours to construct, centuries may elapse before it 
is finally destroyed. The founder of an erroneous hy- 
pothesis creates a monster, which only serves to combat 
and stifle truth. 



280 BACON ON FACTS. 

"It has long been the opinion of scientific man, that 
by a suitable life and regularity the blessings of life may 
be enjoyed in fair health to a 'green old age.' The pur- 
pose of this work is to show that we may for a time curb 
the causes which are visible in effect as age advances, and 
thus prolong life; and further, that by other means, 
founded upon simple facts, we may accomplish this for a 
lengthened period.* 

' ' The author's attempt to deal with a matter of such 
vast importance as the prolongation of life will neces- 
sarily subject him to severe and probably adverse criti- 
cism. In the first edition of a book hurriedly written in 
moments snatched from the turmoil of a general practice, 
many minor errors are sure to be found; but, as the 
author takes facts for a beacon, there is no error in prin- 
ciple. He will only ask those who criticise to imagine 
themselves for the time in the position of Astraea, the 
goddess of Justice, and not to weigh the evidence with 
one scale heavily laden with prejudice. . . . 

1 ' With all our physiological, anatomical, and philo- 
sophical discoveries, there are left many questions at pres- 
ent not solved ; among others, the action of the brain, 
thought, motion, life, and the possible prolongation of 
existence. Nature speaks to us in a peculiar language, 
in the language of phenomena. She answers at all times 
questions which are put to her ; and such questions are 
experiments. 

' ' In ' old age ' the body differs materially from youth 
in action, sensibility, function, and composition. The 



*" 'The true philosopher always seeks to explain and illustrate nature 
by means of facts, of phenomona ; that is, by experiments, the devising 
and discovery of which is his task, and by which he causes the object of 
his investigation to speak as it were intelligibly to him ; but it is by carefully 
observing and arranging all such facts as are in connection with it, that 
insight into its nature is attained. For we must never forget that every 
phenomena has its reason, every effect its cause. 

" 'Let no man be alarmed at the multitude of the objects presented to 
his attention ; for it is this, on the contrary, which ought rather to awaken 
hope. ... If there were any among us who, when interrogated respect- 
ing the objects of nature, were always prepared to answer by facts, the 
discovery of causes and the foundation of all sciences would be the work 
of a few years.' — Bacon. 



CAUSES OF OLD AGE. 281 

active, fluid, sensitive, and elastic body of youth gradu- 
ally gives place to induration, rigidity, and decrepitude, 
which terminate in 'natural death.' In nature there 
are distinct reasons for every change, for development, 
growth, decomposition, and death. If, with our minds 
free from theory, and unbiased by hypotheses, we 
ask Nature the cause of these changes, she will surely 
answer us. Let us ask her the cause of these differences 
between youth and old age — why the various functions 
of the body gradually cease ; why we become ' old ' and 
die. The most marked feature in old age is that a 
fibrinous, gelatinous, and earthy deposit has taken place 
in the system; the latter being composed chiefly of 
phosphate and carbonate of lime, with small quantities 
of sulphate of lime, magnesia, and traces of other earths. 

"Among physiologists and medical philosophers gen- 
erally, the idea prevails that the 'ossification' (or the 
gradual accumulation of earthy salts in the system) which 
characterizes 'natural death' is the result of 'old age,' 
but investigation shows that such an explanation is un- 
satisfactory. For, in the first place, if 'old age' (which 
is really the number of years a person has lived) is the 
cause of the ossification which accompanies it, then, if 
'like causes produce like effects,' all of the same age 
should be found in the same state of ossification ; but 
investigation proves beyond all doubt that such is not 
the case. How common it is to see individuals about 
fifty years old as aged and decrepit as others at seventy 
or eighty ! . . . 

' ' We now come to the most important change of all, 
which fully accounts for the many differences in the 
brain existing between youth and old age, that is,- the 
changes in the blood-vessels supplying it. The arteries 
in old age become thickened and lessened in calibre 
from fibrinous, gelatinous, and earthy deposits. This is 
more easily detected in the larger vessels ; but all, even 
to the most minute subdivisions, undergo the same grad- 
ual change. Thus the supply of blood to the brain be- 
comes less and less ; hence the diminution in size of the 
organ from the prime of life to old age ; hence the 
functions of the brain become gradually impaired ; the 



282 YOUTH AND OLD AGE CONTRASTED. 

vigorous brain of middle life gradually giving place to 
loss of memory, confusion of ideas, inability to follow a 
long current of thought, notions oblivious of the past 
and regardless as to the future, carelessness of momen- 
tary impressions, softening of the brain, and that imbe- 
cility so characteristic of extreme age." 

After quoting from Copland, Hooper's "Physician's 
Vade Mecum," and from the experiments of M. Rayer, 
M. Cruveilheir, M. Rostan, M. Recamier, and others, 
Dr. Evans continues : 

* ' We have quoted from the above authorities to show 
that ossification and thickening of the arteries of the 
brain has not been overlooked, but that it is a fact which 
has been known for many years ; also to show that this 
gradual process of ossification is not due to any inflam- 
matory action. And we shall show that this earthy 
matter has been deposited from the blood, and increases 
year by year with old age, thus lessening the calibre of 
the larger vessels, partially, and in some cases fully, 
' clogging up ' the capillaries, gradually diminishing the 
supply of blood to the brain, causing its diminution in 
size in old age, and fully accounting for the gradual loss 
of the mental capabilities before enumerated. 

' ' As age advances, the energies of the ganglial system 
decline; digestion, circulation, and the secretory func- 
tions are lessened ; the ganglia diminish in size, become 
firmer, and of a deeper hue. In old age the nerves 
become tougher and firmer, the medullary substance 
diminishes, and their blood-vessels lessen in calibre. 
The sensibility of the whole cerebro- spinal system de- 
creases, hence diminution of the intellectual powers, less- 
ened activity and strength in the organs of locomotion 
in advanced age." 

We quote further from pages 27 and 28 : 

"In the foregoing pages we have pointed out the 
differences existing between youth and old age. In the 
former the various organs and structures are elastic, 
yielding, and pliable; the senses are keen, the mind 
active. In the latter, these qualities are usurped by 



OSSIFICATION CAUSED BY WRONG FOOD. 283 

hardness, rigidity and ossification ; the senses are want- 
ing in susceptibility, the mind in memory and capacity. 

"Further, that these changes are due, firstly, to a 
gradual accumulation of fibrinous and gelatinous sub- 
stances; secondly, to a gradual deposition of earthy 
compounds, chiefly phosphate and carbonate of lime. 
These, acting in concert, diminish the calibre of the 
larger arterial vessels, and by degrees partially, and 
sometimes fully, obliterate the capillaries. By these 
depositions every organ and structure in the system is 
altered in density and function ; the fluid, elastic, pli- 
able, and active state of body gives place to a solid, 
inactive, rigid, ossified, and decrepit condition. The 
whole system is ' choked up ' ; the curtain falls, the play 
of life is ended, terminating in so-called 'natural death.' 

1 ' The general impression is that this accumulation of 
fibrinous, gelatinous, and osseous matter is the result of 
old age — the result of time, the remote effects of the 
failure of that mysterious animal principle, life. But 
in an after chapter we shall show that this great vital 
principle, which is centered in the cerebro-spinal axis, 
gradually wanes because the brain and nerves by degrees 
lose their supply of blood, their powers of selection and 
inhibition, and are deprived of their ordained nourish- 
ment by means of this gradual process of induration and 
ossification. . . . 

' ' We will now inquire into the source of these deposi- 
tions, which gradually accumulate from the first period 
of existence to old age. . . . 

1 ' As the blood is built up from the chyle (which is 
formed from the chyme by the action of the bile and 
pancreatic fluid), we should expect to find in the latter 
the same calcareous matter; and such is the fact, that, on 
analysis, we find the same earthy salts in the chyle as 
exist in the blood. As the chyle is formed from the chyme 
(which is the product of action of the stomach and its 
secretions on food), we should in it find the same calcare- 
ous matter ; and such, again, is the fact. But as the 
chyme is the product of digestion, we expect to find the 
same calcareous matter in the contents of the stomach ; 
and such also is the fact. The contents of the stomach 



284 PROPER DIET PREVENTS OSSIFICATION. 

consist of food and drink taken to nourish and support 
the system, and in that food and drink we ought to find 
the same calcareous substances; and chemical analysis 
gives to us the certain answer, that the food and drink 
taken to support the system contain, besides the ele- 
ments of nutrition, earthy salts, which are the cause of 
ossification, obstruction, old age, and natural death. 

1 ' We have now traced these earthy compounds which 
are found in the system, and which increase as age 
advances, to the blood, from which they are, by the pro- 
cess of transpiration, gradually deposited. From the 
blood we trace them to the chyle, from the chyle to the 
chyme, and from the chyme to the contents of the 
stomach and thence to articles of diet. Thus we eat to 
live, and eat to die. 

' ' As we have traced these earthy salts to our food or 
articles of diet, we naturally inquire whether the different 
kinds of food and drink which we have for our selection 
contain the same proportion of ossifying and ' old age ' 
producing matter. Here chemical analysis answers in 
the negative ! Some of the most generally used aliment- 
ary substances contain a comparatively large proportion 
of earthy compounds, some a moderate, and others a very 
small amount. ' No matter what kind of food we eat, or 
what fluid we drink, the earthy salts contained therein 
have all the same source — the earth.' 

" If we eat vegetable food, plants derive their earthy 
salts from the earth in which they grow. If animal flesh 
be our sustenance, they have the same source, through 
the medium of the animal we eat, which derives its sup- 
ply from vegetation. Fish in the sea, fowls in the air, 
animals upon the earth, all derive the earthy salts con- 
tained in them originally from the earth, in the food on 
which they live. Any organ, or all the organs put to- 
gether, of man or any being, cannot generate any element ; 
hence all that is earthy in man is derived from the earth. 

" From this it follows, that if we can so regulate our 
diet — food and drink — that the amount of earthy matter 
taken into the system be sufficient only for the growth 
and nourishment of the bones, without which our powers 
of strength and motion would be useless (the body being 



AGE OF THE PATRIARCHS. 285 

deprived of its mechanical levers), the many organs and 
structures would not, and could not, harden and ossify ; 
the arteries would not become indurated and lessened in 
calibre, capillaries would not become obliterated, the 
brain would not decrease in size by age, sight would not 
fail, hearing, taste, and smell would not lose their sus- 
ceptibility, hair would not turn grey, the skin would not 
become dry and wrinkled, the body would retain its fluid- 
ity, elasticity, and activity, and the brain its mental cap- 
abilities. If we can so regulate our diet that these earthy 
compounds are taken into the system in smaller quanti- 
ties, and therefore take a longer period to accumulate — 
if we can even partially accomplish this — we can prolong 
life! 

y ' We have shown ' old age ' and ' natural death ' to 
be due to two causes — firstly, to the action of atmospheric 
oxygen, which consumes our bodies and causes fibrinous 
and gelatinous accumulations ; secondly, to a deposition 
of earthy matter (ossification). If, therefore, we can, 
by artificial means, partially arrest the never-ceasing 
action of atmospheric oxygen, and at the same time pre- 
vent the accumulations of these earthy compounds, or 
even remove them from the system — that state of body 
termed * old age ' would be deferred, and life would be 
prolonged for a lengthened period ! 

" Liebig says : ' Many of the fundamental or leading 
ideas of the present time appear, to him who knows not 
what science has already achieved, as extravagant as the 
notions of the alchemists.' 

' ' In all the animal kingdom there is a beauty of 
structure manifested, wondrous, marvelous, and ex- 
quisite ; but man alone has been endowed with knowl- 
edge, wisdom, and understanding, as a sole and exclu- 
sive gift to him. 

1 * Speaking of the patriarchs, Josephus affirms : ' Their 
food was fitter for the prolongation of life ; and besides, 
God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their 
virtue and the good use they made of it in astronomical 
and geometrical discoveries.' Many authors contend 
that the years, at the time of the patriarchs, were shorter 
than at the present time — not more than one-fourth the 



286 FRUITS ARE BEST, CEREALS ARE WORST. 

period. If this were true, Methusaleh would have lived 
only two hundred and forty-three years, Terah fifty-one, 
and Abram forty-four. Enoch would have been only 
sixteen when he begat Methusaleh, Arphaxed eight and 
three-quarters when he begat Salah, Salah seven years 
old when he begat Elber, and Adam would have been 
more than a great-grandfather at thirty-three. There is 
no evidence to show the years were less than at the 
present time. It is probable, and quite possible (presum- 
ing that their diet tended to longevity), that the patri- 
archs lived to their recorded ages. Who, therefore, can 
deny that, with all our knowledge and discoveries, which 
are daily increasing, man may not again re-discover the 
secret of long life, which has been lost for so many ages, 
and which secret may probably be summed up in the 
following few words : 

' ' If a human being subsists upon food which contains 
a large proportion of lime, a large proportion will enter 
into the composition of the chyme, the chyle, and the 
blood; and as from the blood the deposition of lime 
takes place, the greater the amount of lime that blood 
contains, the greater will be the amount deposited in the 
system, the greater the degree of ossification, and the 
sooner will be produced that rigidity, inactivity, and 
decrepitude, which make him old and bring him to 
premature death. 

' ' On the other hand, if the food and drink taken to 
nourish and support the body are selected from the arti- 
cles which contain the least amount of lime, the least 
amount will enter into the composition of the chyme, 
the chyle, and the blood, the less amount will there be 
to deposit, the less degree of ossification, the less the 
rigidity, inactivity, and decrepitude, and the longer the 
life of the man / " 

Dr. Evans gives over twenty pages to tables of the 
analysis of foods, which show that fruits and nuts have 
the least proportion of earthy matter, as compared with 
their nourishing properties, of any of the foods now used 
by man ; next in order are animal foods ; then come 
vegetables; and fourth and last are the pulses and 



TESTIMONY OF HESIOD. 287 

cereals, which are shown to have the largest amount of 
earthy matter. The following quotation is from page 79 : 

1 ' From the foregoing analyses we see that fruits, 
as distinct from vegetables, have the least amount of 
earthy matter ; most of them contain a large quantity of 
water, but that water in itself is of the purest kind — a 
distilled water of nature, and has in solution vegetable 
albumen. 

1 ' We also notice that they are to a great extent free 
from the oxidized albumens — glutinous and fibrinous 
substances, and many of them contain acids — critic, tar- 
taric, malic, etc. — which, when taken into the system, 
act directly upon the blood, by increasing its solubility, 
by thinning it ; the process of circulation is more easily 
carried on, and the blood flows more easily in the capil- 
laries (which become lessened in calibre as age ad- 
vances) than it would if of a thicker nature. By this 
means the blood flows easily in vessels which have been 
perhaps for years lost to the passage of a thicker fluid. 
Further, these acids lower the temperature of the body, 
therefore the process of wasting combustion, or oxida- 
tion, which increases in ratio to the temperature of the 
body, as indicated by the thermometer. . . . 

"Speaking of the ancients, Hesiod, the Greek poet, 
says : ' The uncultivated fields afforded them their 
fruits, and supplied their bountiful and unenvied re- 
past.' Porphyry, a Platonic philosopher of the third cen- 
tury, a man of great talent and learning, says : ' The 
ancient Greeks lived entirely upon the fruits of the 
earth.' Lucretius, on the same subject, says: 

" ' Soft acorns were their first and chief est food, 
And those red apples that adorn the wood. 
The nerves that joined their limbs were firm and strong; 
Their life was healthy, and their age was long. . . . 
Returning years still saw them in their prime ; 
They wearied e'en the wings of measuring Time : 
Not colds, nor heats, on strong diseases wait, 
And tell sad news of coming hasty fate: 
Nature not yet grew weak, not yet began 
To shrink into an inch the largest span.' " 

In addition to those arguments in favor of fruit-eat- 
ing with which many are familiar, — namely, that fruits 



288 EXPERIENCE OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 

abound in cooling and corrective acids, that they are 
filled with water more exquisitely distilled than science 
can yet compass, and that their free use opens the por- 
tals of the system and cures and prevents many dis- 
eases, — Br. Evans has made, in our judgment, a most 
important contribution to science in pointing out that 
nuts and fruits are the most free of all foods from earthy 
matter, and hence from liability to cause ossification and 
decrepitude. 

Attention is called to the following further extracts 
from Dr. Evans' book. It will be observed that he 
places fruits and nuts as first in their fitness for the pro- 
motion of health and longevity ; animal foods are placed 
second; vegetables third; and last, and worst, are 
placed the pulses and cereals, which, from their alleged 
excess of earthy salts, are of all foods best calculated to 
induce ossification of the joints and tissues, thickening 
of the arteries, and consequent and inevitable premature 
old age, and that decrepitude and imbecility almost 
universally but wrongly reckoned a necessary condition 
of senility. 

It is curious and interesting to note that this order 
in which Dr. Evans has classified foods corresponds with 
what all philosophical students will agree must have been 
the experience of the race since its entry upon our 
planet. At first man, with no tools, agriculture, or fire, 
could neither kill nor catch animals, raise cereals, or 
cook either the one or the other ; and must have sub- 
sisted, like all animals below man, on foods spontane- 
ously produced by nature ; hence nuts and fruits must 
have been the first foods utilized by man. Next came 
the slaying, cooking, and eating of animals ; wild tribes 
of men existing on the earth to-day are substantially 
unacquainted with cereals and agriculture, subsisting on 
foods spontaneously produced, supplemented by the ties" 
of animals. And last comes agriculture and cereal eating. 



THE RETURN TO NATURE. 289 

The consensus of writers, from the time of the Greeks 
to the present day, unite in saying that the primitive 
peoples had health and vigor ; while it has been reserved 
for civilization to breed diseases whose name is legion, 
and to witness imbecility, decrepitude, and premature 
death go hand in hand with luxury and plenty. The 
race has strayed far from the path of health and peace ; 
and most likely must return by the route whence it came ; 
(1) discontinue the use of cereals and vegetables, and 
the multitudinous cooking and concoctions to which the 
use of these products gives birth ; (2) make fruits and 
nuts the basis of human food, supplemented with such 
animal products, with the minimum of cookery, as in the 
present condition of the race may be found necessary ; 
(3) an absolute return to nuts and fruits, uncooked and 
unseasoned. After which there will be no diseases, and 
no doctors upon the face of the earth. 

" It is one of nature s laws and a very simple one, 
that we are built up from what originally was vegetable 
albumen ; and, with the exception of the alkaline and 
earthy salts, every structure and organ in our bodies was 
developed from and is nourished by albumen. It was 
one of the laws of Eden that man should eat albumen — 
vegetable albumen — in its purest form, as it exists in 
fruits. 

"There is, therefore, a simplicity, a reason, a won- 
derful philosophy in the first command given to man. 
Man may live entirely upon fruits, in better health than 
the majority of mankind now enjoy. Good, sound, ripe 
fruits are never a cause of disease; but the vegetable 
acids, as we have before stated, lower the temperature of 
the body, decrease the process of combustion or oxida- 
tion — therefore the waste of the system — less sleep is 
required, activity is increased, fatigue or thirst hardly 
experienced ; still the body is well nourished, and, as a 
comparatively small quantity of earthy salts are taken 
into the system, the cause of ' old age ' is in some de- 
gree removed, the effect is delayed, and life is prolonged 



2 9 o DIET OF AMERICAN INDIANS. 

to a period far beyond our 'threescore years and ten.' 

" 'Animal flesh , taken as a class, contains next to fruits 
the least amount of earthy salts. . . . 

"The amount depends, firstly, upon the quantity 
contained in the food of the animal ; secondly \ upon the 
duration of time the animal has eaten such food — that 
is, its age. Younger animals of every class contain a 
less amount of earthy salts in their flesh than older ones : 
thus veal, in the analyses generally given, contains only 
about one-fourth the amount of earthy salts found in an 
equal weight of the flesh, of an adult animal, and it 
further contains from 12 to 15 per cent, more phosphoric 
acid than is necessary for the formation of salts. . . . 

' ' ' The true unsophisticated American Indians near 
the sources of the Missouri, during the winter months, 
are reported to subsist entirely upon dried buffalo flesh 
— not the fat portions, but the muscular part. . . . Dur- 
ing their subsistence on dried pemmican, they are de- 
scribed by travelers who were intimate with their habits 
of life, as never tasting even the most minute portions 
of any vegetable whatever, or partaking of any other 
variety of food. These facts, then, tend to show that 
albuminous tissue is of itself capable of sustaining life. ' — 
Dr. Thompson. 

* ' In other articles of animal food we have milky un- 
skimmed, skimmed, and buttermilk; they all contain 
about . 7 per cent, of salts ; but the latter contains a large 
quantity of lactic acid, which has a great tendency to 
prevent the accumulation of earthy matter in the system, 

1 ' Cheese contains salts in about the same proportion as 
milk deprived of its water. It seems by its analysis to 
have a large quantity of salts (nearly 5 per cent.), but 
they exist in ratio to its highly nourishing properties. 

" Eggs contain 1.5 per cent, of salts (.5 per cent, less 
than beef and mutton). . . . 

' ' The cereals constitute the basis of man's food ; they 
mostly contain large quantities of mineral matter and as 
a class are the worst adapted as a food for man, in re- 
gard to a long life. Man's so-called ' staff of life ' is, to 
a great extent, the cause of his premature death. 

' ' In the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of 



PERSIANS AND ETHIOPIANS. 291 

the Third Book ('Thalia') of Herodotus, describing a 
visit of some Persian ambassadors to the long-lived 
Ethiopians (Macrobii), the Ethopians ' asked what the 
Persian king was wont to eat, and to what age the long- 
est-lived of the Persians had been known to attain. They 
told him that the King ate bread, and described the 
nature of wheat — adding that eighty years was the longest 
term of man's life among the Persians. Hereat he re- 
marked, ' ' It did not surprise him, if they fed on dirt 
(bread), that they died so soon; indeed, he was sure 
they never would have lived so long as eighty years ex- 
cept for the refreshment they got from that drink 
(meaning the wine), wherein he confessed the Persians 
surpassed the Ethiopians." The Ichthyophagi then, in 
their turn, questioned the King concerning the term of 
life and diet of his people, and were told that most of 
them lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, while 
some even went beyond that age ; they ate boiled flesh, 
and had for their drink nothing but milk.' . . . 

' ' We, therefore, see that the different kinds of food, 
in regard to longevity, have the following order : fruits, 
fish, animal food (flesh, eggs, etc.), vegetables, cereals. 
In the same order do we trace the age of man by his 
diet. It is written that man in the first ages lived for a 
period which to us seems incredible ; but in the present 
generation the average time of life is so short, that a man 
at eighty or ninety years is truly a modern ' patriarch.' 
Man's first and ordained diet was fruits ; he then ate 
animal food, which was subsequently permitted to him ; 
after this he gained a knowledge of agriculture — he 
grew vegetables and cereals ; and not content with this, 
during the last few years he has learned to add lime 
artificially to them — to shrink and lessen an already 
shortened existence. 

' ' In nature a curious yet simple phenomenon is often 
observed — a rise and fall. If perpetual, it alternates and 
becomes a fall and rise. We notice it in the sun, in 
gravity, in fluctuation, in the tides, and even in the rise 
and fall of empires. Man has degenerated — this degen- 
eration is due solely to his diet. He has fallen \ but we 
hope that he has risen to the highest point in the art of 



292 WHY HUMAN MILK IS BEST. 

shortening his days, and that in the present generation 
he will commence to gradually/^// back on his original 
and ordained diet. Since the creation, the days of man's 
existence have been little by little decreasing — it has 
been a gradnal fall ; bnt both science and religion tell us 
that he must rise again, that his life on earth must be 
prolonged. . . . 

" It is a well-known fact that children brought up on 
human milk are healthier and more robust than children 
fed on cow's milk. The reason is obvious. The salts 
in human milk exist in ratio to its nourishing properties, 
as one part of salts to seventeen and a half parts of ni- 
trogenous matter ; in cow s milk, as one part of salts to 
six and one-third parts of the same nourishing sub- 
stances. Therefore, in round numbers, the nutrient 
part of cow's milk contains nearly three times the amount 
of salts as compared with human milk. The proportions 
of alkaline and earthy salts are proximately the same in 
the ashes of both, so that one ounce of caseine taken 
from cow's milk contains nearly three times the amount 
of earthy salts found in an equal weight of caseine from 
human milk. 

' ' A human being takes four or five times longer to 
mature than a cow ; the latter therefore grows more 
quickly, and its bones ossify in a less period of time than 
the former, whose organs are more gradual in their 
development and growth — whose bones should take a 
longer time to ossify, and therefore nature gives a food 
which contains less earthy matter. If we do not follow 
nature's laws some bad result must follow, and one-half 
of our strumous children, who, besides their milk, are as 
a rule fed on bread and other farinaceous foods — most of 
them rich in earthy compounds — are for their age in 
years and months bodily older than healthy and robust 
children of the same age. Rickets and mollities ossium 
are in themselves diseases, not necessarily caused by a 
deficiency of earthy salts in the food, but by a lack in 
the system of power to assimilate them. 

' ' We can stunt the growth of the lower animals by 
giving them an excess of earthy matter ; we can ossify 
them, make them permanently old, and shorten their 



CAUSE OF CRETINISM. 293 

days, by the same. In human beings we need not look 
further than the Cretins found in the valleys of the Alps, 
Pyrenees, and other regions. Although cretinism has 
two distinct causes, the first and most important is that 
an excess of earthy matter — lime or magnesian lime — is 
taken into the system in solution in water used for drink- 
ing purposes. Hereditary it must be to children born 
of parents suffering from this disease, if not removed 
from the cause; but sound, healthy children brought 
into districts where cretinism exists are, at an early age, 
equally subject to the disease with children born in 
them. 

' ' Now these beings are, in their infancy, literally 
prematurely ossified, the development of the bones is 
arrested, the height being seldom more than four and a 
half feet. The bones of the cranium, which in a natural 
state should expand to allow the brain to grow and 
develop, at an early age becomes thickened, hardened, 
and ossified to such an extent that expansion is impos- 
sible; the brain, therefore, cannot develop; it is grad- 
ually deprived of its blood supply from below; it is 
incased and imprisoned by its own shield ; its intellect- 
ual part cannot develop ; the being is subservient to the 
animal portion ; he becomes voracious and lascivious, 
and in many cases sinks in intelligence below the level 
of many of the brutes. The age of Cretins is short ; few 
of them reach thirty years, and as Clayton remarks, 
1 although they die early, they soon present the appear- 
ance of age.' This miserable state of existence is due, 
to a great extent, to premature ossification. 

' ' It is therefore clear that infants should be fed on 
human milk; that children, during their growth, should 
not be fed almost entirely on foods rich in earthy salts 
— on a cereal or farinaceous diet ; lime 'should be given 
for the expansion and development of their bodies. 
They should therefore eat a mixed diet — fruits or animal 
food in excess of the farinaceous ; and further, as use 
determines the shape of a limb, exercise and athletic 
games should be encouraged ; and as the mind influences 
the character, sympathies, and welfare of man, and 
places him by its activity and development at the head 



294 FRUIT AND TEMPERANCE REQUIRED. 

of all animated creation, education — the fountain of 
intellectual manifestations, of sound principles of action 
and conduct, of the elegancies, accomplishments, and 
endearments of life — should be carried out in a manner 
which will be attractive to, and appreciated by, the re- 
ceiver of knowledge ; so that, in decomposing the infor- 
mation thus acquired, and recombining it in useful and 
attractive forms, he may lay the foundation in learning 
from the supervision and experience of the good, and 
construct upon it a castle of wisdom — but not at the ex- 
pense of bodily health. 

"To return to the subject of quantity of food re- 
quired to sustain life, we affirm that most men eat more 
than is requisite for this purpose — more than is actually 
good for them. Man does not require four or five meals 
a day ; he would be in far better health on two, or at 
most three meals in the twenty- four hours. 

"Fruits are nutritious in themselves; but should 
they not contain sufficient nitrogen to satisfy a theoreti- 
cal appetite, we have shown that all other elements are 
present, and that man may absorb the deficient nitrogen 
from the surrounding atmosphere, the combination re- 
sulting in albumen, or protein. For this reason, to- 
gether with the fact that they contain little earthy 
matter, fruits are man's best diet if he truly desires a 
long life." 

Lack of space forbids more than a brief quotation 
from Dr. Evan's chapter on " Instances of Longevity in 
Man and in the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms." 
The following is from the 104th and succeeding pages: 

' * On reviewing nearly two thousand reported cases 
of persons who lived more than a century, we generally 
find some peculiarity of diet or habits to account for 
their alleged longevity ; we find some were living among 
all the luxuries life could afford, others in the most ab- 
ject poverty, begging their bread ; some were samples 
of symmetry and physique, others cripples ; some drank 
large quantities of water, others little ; some were total 
abstainers from alcoholic drinks, others drunkards; 
some smoked tobacco, others did not; some lived en- 



INSTANCES OF LONGEVITY. 295 

tirely on vegetables, others to a great extent on animal 
foods; some led active lives, others sedentary; some 
worked with their brain, others with their hands ; some 
ate only one meal a day, others four or five; some 
few ate large quantities of food, others a small amount ; 
in fact, we notice great divergence both in habits and 
diet, but, in those cases where we have been able to ob- 
tain a reliable account of the diet, we find one great cause 
which accounts for the majority of cases of longevity, 
moderation in the quantity of food, . . . 

" < Margaret Robertson, or Duncan, the oldest woman 
in Scotland, died at Coupar Angus yesterday. She was 
born in 1773, and her husband, a weaver, died fifty 
years ago, and left her with a daughter, who is still 
alive, and over sixty. Mrs. Duncan was a heavy smoker, 
and until recently, when she became blind, was in pos- 
session of all her faculties. Her last illness was only of 
a week's duration.' — Daily Telegraph, September 17, 1879. 

1 ' We do not advise either drinking or smoking, as a 
means of prolonging life ; but still there is a philosophy 
noticed in the cases before us. Both drinking and smok- 
ing take away the appetite; less food is eaten, therefore 
a less amount of earthy salts are taken into the system, 
and the cause of old age is delayed in its results ; still, 
sufficient food is taken to support life, and great age 
follows. . . . 

"Among other instances of longevity we have the 
ancient Britons, whom Plutarch states ' only began to 
grow old at 120 years.' 

" ' They were remarkable for their fine athletic form, 
for the great strength of their body, and for being swift 
of foot. They excelled in running, wrestling, climbing, 
and all kinds of bodily exercise ; they were patient of 
pain, toil, and suffering of various kinds; were accus- 
tomed to fatigue, to bear hunger, cold, and all manner 
of hardships. They could run into morasses up to their 
necks and live there for days without eating.' — Henry. 

1 ' Boadicea, Queen of the ancient Britons, in a speech 
to her army, when about to engage the degenerate 
Romans, said : ' The great advantage we have over 
them is, that they cannot, like us, bear hunger, thirst, 



396 HARVEY AND OLD PARR. 

heat, or cold; they must have fine bread, wine, and 
warm houses ; to us every herb and root are food, every 
juice is our oil, and every stream of water our wine. ' 

" ' Their arms, legs, and thighs were always left 
naked, and for the most part were painted blue. Their 
food consisted almost exclusively of acorns, berries, ana 
water. ' — Goldsmith. 

' « From the above we may justly infer that the 
ancient Britons lived on a diet which contained compara- 
tively a small amount of earthy salts ; further, the acorn 
contains tannogallate of potash, which would harden the 
albuminous and gelatinous structures : they would there- 
fore be less liable to waste and decay. Their endurance 
of hunger, cold, and hardships, and their love of water 
(probably from a hardened state of the skin), cannot be 
considered as mere fables. . . . 

" Thomas Parr, a native of Shropshire, died in 1635, 
aged 152. He married at the age of eighty-eight, ' seem- 
ing no older than many at forty.' He was brought 
to London by Thomas, then Earl of Arundel, to see 
Charles I., 'when he fed high, drank plentifully of 
wines, by which his body was overcharged, his lungs ob- 
structed, and the habit of the whole body quite dis- 
ordered ; in consequence, there could not but be speedy 
dissolution. If he had not changed his diet, he might 
have lived many years longer.' — Easton. 

1 ' On his body being opened by Dr. Harvey, it was 
found to be in a most perfect state. ' The heart was 
thick, fibrous, and fat; his cartilages were not even ossified \ 
as is the case in all old people,' and the only cause to which 
death could be attributed was ' a mere plethora, brought 
on by more luxurious living in London than he had been 
accustomed to in his native country, where his food was 
plain and homely.' 

' ' He was married a second time at the age of a hun- 
dred and twenty-one, and could run in foot-races and 
perform the ordinary work of an agricultural laborer 
when a hundred and forty-five years old. . . . 

" Miguel Solis, of Bogota, San Salvador, who is sup- 
posed to be at least one hundred and eighty. At a con- 
gress of physicians, held at Bogota, Dr. Louis Hernandez 



A MAN ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS OLD. 297 

read a report of his visit to this locally famous man, a 
country publican and farmer. 

' ' ' We are told that he only confesses to this age (one 
hundred and eighty years) ; but his neighbors, who must 
be better able to judge, affirm that he is considerably 
older than he says. He is a half-breed, named Miguel 
Solis, and his existence is testified to by Dr. Hernandez, 
who was assured that, when one of ' ' the oldest inhabi- 
tants" was a child, this man was recognized as a centena- 
rian. His signature, in 1712, is said to have been dis- 
covered among those of persons who assisted in the 
construction of a certain convent (Franciscan convent, 
at San Sebastian). Dr. Hernandez found this wonder- 
ful individual working in his garden. His skin was like 
parchment, his hair as white as snow, and covering his 
head like a turban. He attributed his long life to his 
careful habits ; eating only once a day, for half an hour, 
because he believed that more food than could be eaten 
in half an hour could not be digested in twenty-four 
hours. He had been accustomed to fast on the first and 
fifteenth of every month, drinking on those days as 
much water as possible. He chose the most nourishing 
foods, and took all things cold.' — Lancet, September 7th, 
1878.' 

' ' From this and other sources we gather the follow- 
ing habits of this man: (1) He eats but once a day, and 
only for half an hour. (2) He eats meat but twice a 
month ; from which we may justly infer that he is to a 
certain extent abstemious in his daily meal. (3) He 
drinks large quantities of water. (4) He fasts two whole 
days every month. 

' ' From these habits it follows that, compared with 
the majority of mankind, he eats little, yet enough to 
support life ; he therefore takes into his system a small 
amount of earthy compounds, which therefore take a 
longer period to accumulate, and produce the symptoms 
of decrepitude and old age at a far later period than 
they occur in most individuals who live upon an ordi- 
nary quantity of food, whose bodies become rigid, de- 
crepit, and ossified, we will say, at about ' three score 
years and ten.' Further, that his drinking large quan- 



298 LONGEVITY IN ANIMALS. 

tities of water, which, if not unusually hard, will tend 
to dissolve and remove those earthy compounds, which 
are not the effect but the cause of old age. We have not 
thought it necessary to make further inquiries concern- 
ing the diet and habits of this man. Our information is 
derived from numerous periodicals, and we only arrive 
at the above conclusions because we are convinced, from 
ascertained facts and experiments, that man may by 
diet alone attain the age * which Miguel Solis is supposed 
to be." 

We take the following from a lengthy enumeration 
of instances gleaned from various historians and scien- 
tists going to show the extraordinary longevity attained, 
under natural conditions, by the mammal as well as the 
reptile and fish tribes : 

1 ' The horse in his wild state lives to upwards of fifty 
years; but when brought. to subjugation by the severity 
of man, he seldom attains half this age. 

" It is a well-known fact that when a horse does little 
work, and passes the greater part of his days — especially 
the early ones — in his pasture, he lives to nearly forty 
years ; but when a horse is hard- worked and the process 
of transpiration thereby increased, and is, moreover, fed 
upon beans, oats, and other 'ossifying' foods, his days 
are much shorter ; few in fact reach twenty years, and 
even ' Eclipse,' a race-horse which for speed is said to 
have never been defeated, with all the attention which 
man could bestow, died at twenty-five years. 

' ' This faithful servant of man soon becomes prema- 
turely old from the diet on which he is fed ; in fact, his 
food contains so much earthy matter that concretions 
(hippolithi) of phosphates of lime, magnesia, and am- 
monium, in the cacum are of very common occurence ; 
the deposition of earthy salts in the system is also accel- 
erated by hard work, which increases the process of 
transpiration. 

" From the above few cases of the ages of reptiles, 
birds, and animals, which we have selected as illustra- 
tions, it is clear that those of them which attain the 
greatest longevity in animated nature are those which 



ADVANTAGES OF DISTILLED WATER. 299 

are subject to or possessed of one or more of the follow- 
ing peculiarities or qualities : 

11 (1) Those which are only slightly susceptible to the 
action of atmospheric oxygen. 

1 ' (2) Those which are possessed of a restorative 
power, or are enabled to throw off from the system fibri- 
nous, gelatinous, and earthy matter, and the more per- 
fect this renovation, the greater the duration of life. 

' l (3) Those which subsist upon food which contains a 
small quantity of earthy compounds. . . . 

* * Rain-water is the purest form of water occurring in 
nature ; however, even during its fall to the surface of 
the earth it acquires impurities from the air, but directly 
it touches the land it falls upon it dissolves some of the 
materials with which it comes in contact and becomes 
still more impure. Most salts are more or less soluble 
in water, which is the most general solvent of chemical 
substances in nature ; rain-water thus dissolves and com- 
bines with portions of the soluble constituents from the 
strata through which it percolates, and becomes spring- 
water or river- water, and ultimately passes into the sea 
to again take part in this vast process of distillation. 
The solid matter in solution in water is deposited when 
the water is evaporated ; in order to obtain pure water 
it is therefore necessary to distill it, that is, to boil it, 
and collect the water produced by the condensation of 
the steam. . . . 

1 ' Distilled water, used as a drink, is absorbed directly 
into the blood, the solvent properties of which it increases 
to an extent that will keep salts already existing in the 
blood in solution, present their undue deposition in the 
various organs and structures, and favour their elimina- 
tion by the different excreta. If the same be taken in 
large quantities, or if it be the only-liquid taken into the 
system, either as a drink, or as a medium, for the ordi- 
nary decoctions of tea, coffee, etc., it will in time tend to 
remove those earthy compounds which have accumulated 
in the system, the effects of which usually become more 
manifest as the age of forty or fifty years is attained. 
The daily use of distilled water facilitates the removal of 
deleterious compounds from the body by means of the 



300 IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH STUDIES. 

excreta, and therefore tends to the prolongation of ex- 
istence. The use of distilled water may be especially 
recommended after the age of thirty-five or forty years 
is attained; it will of itself prevent many diseases to 
which mankind is especially subject after this age; 
and were it generally used, gravel, stone in the bladder, 
and other diseases due to the formation of calculi in 
different parts of the system, would be much more un- 
common." 

The concluding quotations from Dr. Evans' erudite, 
logical, and remarkable book begin on page 163 : 

' ' Science dictates, and even the most casual observer 
who — for purpose or principle — attempts to comprehend 
the truths and phenomena of universal Nature, unhesi- 
tatingly admits, that ' every phenomenon has its reason, 
every effect its cause. ' This is a fact established and in- 
disputable ; but how often are the laws of life and of 
death doomed to be overlooked by the deluded, and even 
removed from their legitimate situation, which they of 
necessity embrace in forming volumes in the library of 
the academy of Nature! For the sake of method, we 
classify and arrange under many heads, which are but 
servitors to avoid a chaos of observations, descriptions 
and deductions; the confusions thus avoided obviously 
present themselves, but one branch of science is de- 
pendent upon another — each forms a part, all united a 
whole — for Nature is one. To recognize one and ig- 
nore another portion or an entirety — each part of which 
is dependent upon unity — is to break a rule which re- 
mains unbroken. To say that everything dies simply 
because it has lived — that the age of man is fixed irre- 
spective of reason or cause — is not only presumption, 
but confessedly a want of conception, a disbelief in what 
is and therefore must be, and an assault on the fixed and 
immutable laws of natural phenomena. 

' ' When we reflect or meditate on the progress of civ- 
ilized man, we notice wonders and improvements in his 
surroundings, for his welfare and comfort ; we discover a 
spirit of inquiry among men, a silent march of thought 
— a steady progress, impelled forward by an eternal law 



THE UNIVERSAL TERROR. 301 

— Nature's law — experience. This law we may com- 
pare to a circle ; the beginning we know not, the end we 
know not. This circle enlarges, expands — where is the 
limit? Opposition, reproach, threats, and violence can 
only be a temporary check ; they cannot control, abate, 
or arrest the progress of inquiry, the keenness of re- 
search, the results of experience. But among the 
varied and expanding objects of research, is not inquiry 
which appertains to the preservation of life the most im- 
portant of all to humanity? 

" What is man without health, even if endowed with 
riches? Take away the latter and their accompanying 
luxuries — only give him health ; this accomplished, the 
first desire is a return of the riches. But with both a 
word remains which we hate to utter, a thought we 
dread to contemplate, a thing which gives sorrow, pain, 
and grief. That word, that thought, that thing, is 
Death. Even in cases where life appears a burden, how 
tenaciously do men cling to it ! How the spirit recoils 
from a struggle with Death ! How fondly it retains its 
grasp of life ! Man's great desire is for health and long 
life on earth ; to this there are but some few exceptions — 
the result of incidental impressions. ' Man clings to the 
world as his home, and would fain live here for ever.' 

1 ' ' And can we see the newly-turned earth of so many 
graves, hear the almost hourly sounding knell that announces 
the departure of another soul from its bodily fabric, meet 
our associates clad in the garb of woe, hear of death after 
death among those whom we knew — perhaps respected, per- 
haps loved — without pausing to consider if we may not seek 
and haply find more than the mere causes, find the means of 
checking the premature dissolution that so painfully excites 
the deepest and most hidden sympathies of our nature ? The 
prolongation of the life of the people must become an essen- 
tial part of family, municipal, and national policy. Al- 
though it is right and glorious to incur risks and to sacrifice 
life for public objects, it has always been felt that length of 
days is the measure, and that the completion by the people 
of the full term of natural existence is the groundwork of 
their felicity. For untimely death is a great evil. What is 
so bitter as a premature death of a wife, a child, a father ? 
What dashes to the earth so many hopes, breaks so many 



302 THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. 

auspicious enterprises, as the unnatural death ? The poets, 
as faithful interpreters of our aspirations, have always sung, 
that in the happier ages of the world this source of tears shall 
be dried up. ' — Registrar-General of England. 

1 ' In the present day, when we are so accustomed to 
wonders that they no longer excite our wonder ; when 
we send our thoughts almost round the world with the 
velocity of lightning ; when we hear voices miles away 
by the agency of the telephone ; the tick of a watch — 
even the tramp of a fly — by the microphone ; when we 
transcribe the vibrations of sound with the precision of 
a mathematician ; when we freeze water into ice in white 
hot crucibles ; when we cast copper into statues without 
the aid of heat ; when it is possible to illuminate cities 
without gas — with lamps devoid of flame or fire ; when 
some of the most precious minerals are produced from 
their elements; when we believe that to-morrow even 
the diamond may be artificially produced ; with all these 
wonders recently brought to light for the benefit of man- 
kind, is man himself "to be debarred from that social pro- 
gress which is daily manifested ? Are the achievements 
of science of no avail in benefiting his degenerated ex- 
istence ? Will not our daily increasing knowledge of 
Nature and the behaviour of her elements eventually tend 
to this end ? In reference to which Liebig asks : ' Is 
that knowledge not the philosopher s stone, which prom- 
ises to disclose to us the laws of life, and which must 
finally yield to us the means of curing diseases and of pro- 
longing life ? ' 

< ' The fields of research become richer and wider 
with every new discovery, which is often as precious, if 
not more useful, than gold — actually a transmutation 
for the benefit and comfort of man. But as yet he has 
himself been little benefited by science, which must of 
necessity ultimately dictate a means of curing diseases 
and of prolonging life. Is it even just, in the present 
day of so-called wisdom, to ridicule the alchemists of old 
who diligently laboured and searched for a ' virgin earth ' 
- -a mysterious substance which would ' change the baser 
metals to gold, and be a means of curing diseases, of re- 
storing youth to the exhausted frame of age, and of pro- 



FRUITS COMPARED WITH CEREALS. 303 

longing life indefinitely ' ? Such a view would be utterly 
unjust. For the present science of chemistry owes its 
position, its existence — perhaps its origin — to the untir- 
ing observations and researches of the alchemists, which 
were instilled into them in their labourious searches for 
the 'philosopher's stone.' All they sought for exists, 
and may ultimately be found in the illimitable science 
of chemistry. . . . 

' * The beneficial effects of fruit as an article of diet, 
both in health and disease, cannot be overrated. In 
health, the apple, the pear, the grape, the strawberry, 
the gooseberry, the tomato, the fig, the date, wall- 
Tuits, the melon, and numerous others, present such a 
deld for choice that the most capricious appetite need 
never be disappointed. The supply of fruit in the 
United Kingdom is not great, but considerable quanti- 
ties of both fresh and preserved fruits are imported from 
all parts of the world, and are rapidly becoming popular 
among all classes ; and it is to be hoped that our fellow- 
countrymen will gradually become more alive to the 
benefits to be derived from a more general and frequent 
use of fruits as an article of daily food. 

1 ' * When pain and anguish wring the brow, ' in slight 
and temporary indisposition, or during prolonged febrile 
diseases, what is more refreshing and beneficial than the 
juice of the luscious orange? Indeed, in many parts of 
the world, especially in tropical regions, the juice of the 
orange taken in large quantities has been found to be a 
specific for many descriptions of fever; it is, in fact, 
Nature's remedy, and an unsurpassed one. 

' ' Cereal and farinaceous foods form the basis of the 
diet of so-called ' vegetarians,' who are not guided by 
any direct principle, except that they believe it is wrong 
to eat animal food. For this reason vegetarians enjoy 
no better health, and live no longer, than those around 
them. Our remarks, therefore, apply to fruits as dis- 
tinct from vegetables." 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— PROFESSOR GUBLER 

If the investigation of Rowbotham in the years 1840 
to 1850 may be said to be confirmed by the writings of 
De Lacy Evans in 1879, still stronger may this claim be 
made for the following essay on the Cretaceous Degen- 
eration of the Arteries, by Monsieur Gubler, Professor of 
Therapeutics, Paris College of Surgeons, and published 
in the Annales d' Hygiene, Paris, 1877 (2d Ser., Vol. 48). 
Professor Gubler does not take either as positive or as 
broad ground as that of Rowbotham and Evans ; but it is 
manifestly a spontaneous growth from his own mind, 
and is valuable confirmation of these English authorities, 
since it arrives at substantially the same conclusions 
from manifestly independent sources. The translation 
is liberal, and shortened somewhat, but will be found to 
be correct. 

"The title of this communication sufficiently indicates 
that I do not here submit a definite solution of the prob- 
lem, but simply some personal views, and the sugges- 
tion of a new method to be followed in the study of this 
difficult and interesting question of atheromatous degen- 
eration. 

' ' As age progresses, and under the influence of con- 
ditions still imperfectly determined, the inner wall of 
the arteries, supple and elastic in its normal state, thick- 
ens gradually and becomes indurated in such a manner 
as to offer, to the exploring finger, similar resistance to 
that of a bird's feather or the windpipe of a chicken, ac- 
cording as the degeneration is uniform or disposed in 



THE GREATER IMMUNITY OF THE RICH. 305 

circular zones alternately with rings relatively healthy. 

' ' By anatomic examination it is found that the thick- 
ening and induration of the vascular membrane is due 
to the accumulation of a whitey yellow granulous and 
fatty substance, but essentially of mineral composition, 
the greater part of which is represented by the carbon- 
ates and earthy phosphates. 

' ' This degeneration spares no one and affects all 
classes, but in a manner very unequally ; indeed, the con- 
trast is something astonishing in this respect between 
the well-to-do and the working classes, between town 
and country people, the difference being entirely to the 
advantage of the first. While among those high in 
the social scale, supple arteries are to be noted until the 
approach of confirmed old age, if not even of decrepi- 
tude, in the inferior classes, on the contrary, arterial 
induration often shows a striking precocity. It evi- 
dences itself not only in the wane of life but in maturity 
and even in youth. In our hospitals, for example, men 
of 40, 30, and even 20 and under, exhibit the radial ar- 
teries already thickened and resistant. In short, while 
that at about 45 or 50 years confirmed degeneration is 
the general rule amongst labourers from the country, 
such as navvies, masons, etc., the deterioration only 
commences to show itself at about the age of 60 
among the higher classes. Whence comes this strange 
disparity? Is there nothing for it but to ascribe this 
condition as one more of the baneful effects of alcohol- 
ism? No doubt alcohol is a great evil, and it is not 
easy to put the working classes too much on their guard 
against its deplorable influence. Still, there is no need 
to exaggerate, and for my part I am convinced that 
modern physicians have not always been able to avoid 
imputing to alcoholism (so fruitful in dangers to health 
and life) symptoms the real cause of which they were 
unable to discover. 

* * I do not pretend absolutely to exonerate alcohol from 
all share in this atheromatous and calcareous degenera- 
tion. I merely believe I can establish that this poison- 
ous agent is neither the sufficient, nor the principal cause 
of the pathological phenomena under consideration. 



306 THE DIET OF THE POOR CAUSES EARLY DEATH. 

"As a matter of fact, I have had occasion to see 
many subjects of premature arterial induration who 
have emphatically affirmed their sobriety. Among these 
there are those whose sincerity can hardly be questioned, 
and respecting many of them I obtained information 
entirely favourable ; without counting that the youth of 
some of them made it impossible that habits of drunken- 
ness, which they wholly repudiated, and of which they 
manifested no other distinctive symptoms, could have 
manifested themselves. 

" On the other hand, wealthy people are not exempt 
from the vice that is attributed (and justly) to the town 
working classes. I know many gentlemen who never 
put water in their wine, who drink plentifully of the 
best wines, and do not abstain from spirits, yet who 
remain free from all atheromatous and calcareous degen- 
eration. 

" It may be urged, perhaps, that in the higher ranks 
of society alcoholic drink is taken with the meals, and 
that, consequently, being mingled with the chymous 
matter and slowly absorbed, it is not so liable to reach the 
hepatic gland or the blood in sufficiently large quantity 
to work great harm. The habits of the two classes, 
however, from the alcoholic point of view, are not so 
very dissimilar, and consequently they are not capable 
of accounting for the profound difference that exists 
between rich and poor in respect of the precocity and 
intensity of this deterioration of the arterial system. 

1 'It seemed to me that the nourishment, so different 
in the cases respectively of each class, poor and rich, 
country and town, would be able to furnish us with a 
satisfactory explanation of the facts noted. While the 
one class live principally on flesh (their favourite vege- 
tables — mushrooms, truffles, asparagus — are themselves 
largely provided with the nitrogenous principle), the 
other class is sustained on vegetable substances, bread, 
potatoes, cabbages, salads, and the bean species, as well 
as fruits, forming the basis of their food. 

' ' Now, meat and the albuminous substances contain 
very little mineral elements ; while the pulses and the 
fruits are well supplied with them. It is the leaves of 



HOW OSSIFICATION IS CAUSED. 307 

plants that possess the function of condensing and retain- 
ing in their tissues the mineral matter in solution in the 
ascending sap, and these organs, in decaying, yearly 
restore to the soil the earthy salts the plants have re- 
ceived. Such is the physiologic reason for the enormous 
proportion of earthy mattei which the consumption of 
green portions of plants (and consequently of the pulses) 
introduces into the human economy, and into that of the 
herbivorous animals. 

' ' This aliment is principally composed of phosphates 
and earthy carbonates, which, easily soluble in the liquid 
acids of the organism and even in the blood by virtue of 
an excess of carbonic gas, are no longer so either in the 
alkaline secretions or in the serum of the blood, devoid 
as the latter is of carbonic acid. These saline or chalky 
matters, then, accumulating and being precipitated in 
the liquid secretions of various organs, tend, among other 
prejudicial conditions, to the formation of calcareous 
incrustations throughout the system. This tendency 
has a two-fold action, not only causing the fossilization 
of the arteries involved, but, by introducing alkaline 
salts to organic acids, it serves to further alkalize the 
fluids of the body and so favour the precipitation of 
earthy matters. 

' ' Now, whence comes this tendency of mineral sub- 
stances to deposit themselves in the membranes of the 
arteries? The following considerations borrowed from 
experimental physiologists and the observation of nat- 
ural facts will help us, I hope, to understand the phe- 
nomena. 

1 ' We have seen, above, that leaves traversed by the 
sap-flow retain from the current the earthy matters which 
it holds in solution. The marine algae (seaweed) per- 
form the same function in regard to iodine and bromine, 
of which they store considerable quantities, though the 
water in which they float gives scarcely perceptible 
traces of these two metals. In one respect this fact does 
not apply to those we are considering, as mineral 
substances in vegetables that are in their normal health 
and vigour do not take the place of the living tissue — 
they simply line the interior of the cellular walls in 



3o8 EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS. 

the tissue, or, rather form crystalline accumulations 
there. 

1 ' But here is a case altogether analogous to that 
which occupies us, and the knowledge of which can 
throw light upon the history of the morbid process from 
which atheromatous and calcareous degeneration results. 

"In an unopened abscess charged with purulent 
matter, the pus globules become markedly granular, 
opaque, and irregular, some of the smaller masses unit- 
ing partially in larger ones, others breaking up and giv- 
ing birth to numerous molecules endowed with motion, 
while the older agglomerations are transformed into a 
veritable milk of lime. 

' ' On the other hand the cancerous growths in a dis- 
eased liver, in proportion as they increase, waste away 
in their centers, become yellow and granulus, and finally 
show in the affected tissue molecular granules of mineral 
substance. The healing of the tubercules which form 
in lung disease by cre'tification is, again, a phenomenon 
of the same order, in which the abnormal tissue has 
almost disappeared from the center of a calcareous mass 
mixed up with anthrocoid particles and crystals of the 
chloride of sodium. 

' ' The interpretation of these facts would not seem to 
offer serious difficulties. It may be summed up as fol- 
lows : A tissue very enfeebled, whose renovation can 
only be very slowly, if at all effected, becomes coated 
gradually with earthy and insoluble matters held in solu- 
tion by the serous liquid which flows by its walls unceas- 
ingly ; in course of time a relatively enormous accumu- 
lation of the incrusting substances takes place in or on 
the organ. 

' ' An experiment easily performed demonstrates al- 
most to conviction the certainty of this process. A clot 
of blood is introduced into the peritoneum or gland of a 
cock, the wound is closed, and a few weeks allowed to 
elapse. When the bird is killed, there is found in the 
peritoneal cavity in place of the clot of blood or of the 
gland, a mass less voluminous, greyish, slightly coher- 
ent, almost entirely composed of earthy material, and 
the size of which is yet so considerable that it would be 



THE PEASANTS OF ORLEANS. 309 

absurd to suppose such a quantity of carbon and of phos- 
phate of lime should originally have formed part of the 
coagulum introduced. 

"The tendency to incrustation is shown by experi- 
ment, other things being equal, to be inversely to the 
vitality of the tissue — that is to say, to its power of reno- 
vation. 

"On the other hand, the quantity of mineral sub- 
stances introduced must be directly proportional, not to 
the blood current, but to the rapidity with which the 
alkaline solution filtrates and penetrates the tissues, pro- 
vided of course that this alkaline solution which has 
been deprived of its carbonic acid is ready to give up 
the earthy matters it is no longer able to hold in a dis- 
solved state. So that we find this tendency greatest in 
tissues deprived of vessels, or in which the vascularity is 
very poor, and which are sustained by imbibition at the 
expense of the blood vessels of adjacent parts. For all 
these reasons the internal anhistical membrane — scarcely 
living middle membrane — of the arteries, which is but 
little irrigated with the blood, and which is fed by the 
serum which filters continuously through the internal 
lining, is particularly predisposed to suffer atheromatous 
and calcareous degeneration. 

' ' The correctness of these views may be easily veri- 
fied. If, as I think, the cretaceous incrustations of the 
arteries have their origin in the earthy matters supplied 
in a vegetarian regime, concurrently with drinking waters 
charged with earthy salts, they will be more frequent, 
more premature, and more serious in chalky districts; 
rarer, and even absent in siliceous districts. Well, Dr. 
Leblanc tells me that he has been struck by the prev- 
alence of this morbid state among the peasants of 
l'Orleans. On the other hand, in a region absolutely 
devoid of lime, and where the fowls can scarcely make 
shell for their eggs, one of my friends, who is not a 
doctor (although he can feel the pulses of his work- 
people) but who is well read in science, has not remarked 
any hardening of the arteries except in case of those 
well advanced in years. My friend, Dr. Vibert, who 
occupies a good medical position at Puy, informs me 



310 DEGENERATION OF TRAPPISTS. 

that in this granitic and volcanic region atheromatous 
degeneration is rare. 

' ' In short, if I am right, atheromatous and calcare- 
ous degeneration affects particularly the sects pledged 
to pulse- eating, whose recruits come from the better 
class, as well as the religious orders vowed to the mon- 
asticism and to the vegetable nourishment. Such was 
the case in a convent of Trappists recently visited by 
Dr. Raymond. My friend, who had acquaintances in 
the place, was able to assure himself that among some 
ten monks still young, and especially in the case of the 
prior, who was only thirty- two years old, the radial 
arteries were already markedly indurated. 

" Here, then, if I am not mistaken, is an early 
confirmation of the correctness of my ideas. But the 
opinions that I have submitted herein can only be solidly 
established after a careful inquiry by observers through- 
out the country and by the medical fraternity generally . " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— DR. WINCKLER 
(ALANUS). 

Truth is confined to no nation, nor language, nor 
condition of man. I have always pointed out the simi- 
larity in the obscure writings of a man formerly in the 
north of England with Dr. Evans' well-known book. 
There is every reason to believe that the investigations 
of Professor Gubler are entirely independent of, and 
were not the reflections of the writings of Mr. Row- 
botham or of Dr. Evans. Mr. Rowbotham and Dr. 
Evans lay especial stress upon the importance of refrain- 
ing from the use of bread and cereal foods because of 
the danger of ossification of the tissues, and thereby 
hastening premature decrepitude and old age. Professor 
Gubler, while pointing out that these foods are favour- 
able to the precipitation of chalky deposits in the tissues, 
is especially concerned with calcareous incrustations of 
the arteries. A degeneration of the arteries is a prime 
source for the multiplication of all diseases, and for the 
weakening and shortening of human life in all direc- 
tions. As soon as the inner lining of the arteries is 
enlarged and encrusted, hardened, the size of the tube is 
lessened, a smaller quantity of blood is carried to the 
tissues ; this in its turn results in inadequate nutrition, 
and this again in corresponding and consequent weak- 
ness and decrepitude. 

Professor Gubler is in turn confirmed by the experi- 
ence and writings of a German physician, Dr. Winckler, 
who had been converted to vegetarianism, and who con- 



312 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, 

tributed to vegetarian publications articles commending 
it, under the name of Dr. Alanus. After some years of 
enthusiastic work in food reform Dr. Alanus was horri- 
fied to find his radial arteries resistant, plainly showing 
cretaceous degeneration; and the doctor earnestly set 
about the solution of the problem as to the cause of the 
difficulty. Dr. Alanus contributed an account of his ex- 
perience and investigations to the New York Medical 
Record, from which the following is taken : 

1 ' Having lived for a long time as a vegetarian with- 
out feeling any better or worse than formerly with mixed 
food, I made one day the disagreeable discovery that my 
arteries began to show signs of atheromatous degenera- 
tion (chalky degeneration) ; particularly in the temporal 
and radial arteries this morbid process was unmistakable. 
Being still under forty I could not interpret this symptom 
as a manifestation of old age, and being, furthermore, 
not addicted to drink, I was utterly unable to explain 
the matter. I turned it over and over in my mind with- 
out finding a solution of the enigma. I, howe ver, found 
the explanation quite accidentally in a work of that ex- 
cellent physician, Dr. G. Monin, of Paris. The follow- 
ing is the verbal translation of the passage in question : 
1 In order to continue the criticism of vegetarianism 
we must not ignore the work of the late lamented 
Gubler, on the influence of a vegetable diet on a chalky 
degeneration of the arteries. Vegetable food, richer in 
mineral salts than that of animal origin, introduces more 
mineral salts into the blood. Raymond has observed 
numerous cases of atheroma (chalky deposit) in a mon- 
astery of vegetarian friars, among others that of a prior, 
a man scarcely thirty-two years old, whose arteries were 
considerably hardened. The naval surgeon Freille has 
seen numerous cases of atheromatous degeneration in 
Bombay and Calcutta, where many people live exclu- 
sively on rice. A vegetable diet, therefore, ruins the 
blood-vessels and makes prematurely old, if it is true 
that man is as old as his arteries. It must produce at 
the same time tartar, the senile arch of the cornea and 
phosphaturia. ' 



DRS. MONIN, RAYMOND AND FREILLE. 313 

* ' Having unfortunately seen these newest results of 
medical investigation confirmed in my own case, I have, 
as a matter of course, returned to a mixed diet. I can 
no longer consider a purely vegetable diet as the normal 
diet of man, but only as a curative method, which is of 
the greatest service in various morbid states. Some 
patients may follow this diet for weeks and months, but 
it is not adapted for everybody's continued use. It is 
the same as with the starvation cure, which cures some 
patients, but it is not fit to be used continually by the 
healthy. I have become richer by my-experience, which 
has shown me that a single brutal fact can knock down 
the most beautiful theoretical structure." 

Attention is called to the fact that Dr. Alanus found 
a solution of the problem in the work of Dr. G. Monin of 
Paris, who confirms the suggestion of Professor Gubler, 
and cites the writings of Drs. Raymond and Freille as 
further confirmation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— HOLBROOK. 

Years ago S. Rowbotham pointed out the danger aris- 
ing from the use of salt, owing to its tendency to leave 
earthy deposits in the system, resulting in stiffening of 
the joints and degeneration of the arteries. Hygienists 
and many workers in the temperance cause have pointed 
out the intimate connection between seasonings and 
stimulants, and that the use of one predisposes to the 
use of the others. It is a fact of no slight significance 
that science has already indicated that the use of cereal 
and vegetable foods demand the use of salt. The fol- 
lowing quotation is taken from " Eating for Strength," 
a work by M. L. Holbrook, M.D., Professor of Hygiene 
in the New York Medical College and Hospital for 
Women, beginning on page 28 : 

" Let us now look at the potash and soda salts. 
Potash is a very remarkable material ; phosphate of pot- 
ash is an 'essential constituent of the muscles, and also 
of the blood corpuscles. In the serum of the blood, 
however, it is an abnormal constituent, causing paralysis 
of the heart and frequently sudden death. One may, 
without especial danger, take chlorate or carbonate of 
potash through the stomach, as is often the case by pre- 
scriptions of physicians. The same dose, or even a less 
one, however, introduced directly into the circulation, 
causes death. . . Johannus Ranke says that potash is a 
substance which, if it accumulates in the flesh cells or 
nerve cells, causes irritation of the muscles and paralysis 
of the nerves. We find here a riddle. How is it that 



CHEMICAL ACTION OF POTASH. 315 

this material is a necessary constituent of the firm ma- 
terial of our bodies, but so deadly in the serum of our 
blood? Dr. Bunge suggests that the potash and soda 
salts decompose each other, as is the case when mixed 
in the laboratory and allowed to crystalize, new com- 
pounds being formed, one being chloride of potassium 
and the other carbonate of soda. 

' ' Another fact comes to light in this investigation, 
that the plant- eating animals require more common salt 
than the flesh-eating ones. Some of them are so greedy 
for salt that they will travel long distances to salt-licks 
in order to obtain it, which is never the case with carniv- 
orous animals. Now, if we compare the food of the 
flesh-eaters with that of the herbivora, we find about the 
same amount of chloride of sodium (common salt), but 
the amount of potash salts in the food of vegetable-eat- 
ing animals is from two to four times as great. Bunge 
suggests that the reason why the vegetable- eaters re- 
quire more salt is to decompose or change the form of 
the great excess of potash salts, which we have seen 
may be very injurious ; or may not the potash draw so 
heavily on the chloride of sodium in the body as to 
make the addition of it in our food necessary in order to 
maintain the equilibrium of the body? In order to test 
this question scientifically, Bunge made an experiment 
on himself. First, he ate food for five days with such 
exactness as to bring the excretion of the salts to a regu- 
lar and constant amount. On the fifth day he added to 
his food eighteen grammes of phosphate of potash. Al- 
though he had not added any chloride of sodium, there 
was not only an immediate increase of excretion of pot- 
ash salts, but of soda salts also. Repeated experiments 
gave the same results. He estimated that, by the addi- 
tion of twelve grammes of potash salts to the food, 
nearly half of the soda salts of the blood would be ex- 
tracted. This, he thinks, proved his hypothesis. Pot- 
ash in small quantities withdraws from the body chloride 
and sodium, or its oxide, and soda, both constituents of 
common salt, and this requires the addition of it to our 
food. 

' ' It may be seen at a glance that all vegetables con- 



3i6 STARCH FOODS DEMAND SALT, 

tain less soda than milk; and they all contain, rice 
excepted, more potash than this article. If potash, as 
shown by Bunge, withdraws soda from the body, it may 
be seen that the addition of common salt to the food 
poor in soda is a scientific necessity. 

1 ' We also see why a babe nourished on its mother's 
milk does not require the addition of common salt. Its 
food contains less potash salts and more soda salts than 
almost any other article of food. 

' ' Liebig remarked that there seemed to be a popular 
instinct to add more salt to those articles of food which 
were rich in starch, as, for instance, wheat-meal, peas 
and beans, and it seems that these are the very ones 
which contain most potash. 

1 ' In this connection it may be remarked that potash 
salts in large quantities affect unfavourably the mucous 
membrance of the digestive tract, and especially the 
stomach. Consequently, all those who suffer from 
weakness of the stomach should avoid potatoes, and sub- 
stitute rice instead. Rice is also more easily digested 
than potatoes for other reasons. It contains less cellular 
or woody and indigestible matter inclosing the starch 
cells. One writer on food (Mulder) goes so far in his op- 
position to potatoes as an article of diet as to declare it 
would be a blessing to the race to banish them from the 
planet and substitute rice. 

" Dr. Bunge has collected facts concerning the use of 
salt among various people. He finds that those who 
live mainly on flesh, as hunters, fishermen, and nomadic 
tribes, do not care for salt. Of the Samoyden he says : 
1 They know nothing of bread, and but little of roots. 
Flesh and fish constitute their daily food. The use of 
salt is unknown, though easily attainable from the sea. 
The Tungusen eat no raw flesh, but cook it in fresh 
water and use no salt on it. The Dolganen and Jural- 
kan, in North Siberia, possess many salt mines, but they 
never use salt, unless as a medicine. Their food is fish 
and reindeer flesh.' Wrange writes concerning the 
Tschuktschen : ' Their food is flesh and they use no salt, 
but have actual repugnance to it.' 

' ' Prof. Schwartz dwelt in the land of the Tungusen 



THE DIET OF AFRICANS. 3x7 

three years ; lived on the flesh of wild birds and rein- 
deer without the addition of salt, and felt no need for it. 

' ' There are tribes of flesh-eating men in both tropi- 
cal India and Africa who use no salt ; they even laugh 
at those who do use it. 

"On the other hand, most of the native tribes of 
Africa cultivate the soil. Mungo Park says : ' The Man- 
digos breakfast early on porridge made of meal and 
water, flavoured with the rind of tamarind to give it 
relish. About two they eat a meal consisting of pudding 
made of corn meal, milk, and vegetable butter. Their 
chief meal is eaten late at night, and consists of broth 
made with corn meal, wheat meal with vegetables, with 
sometimes a little flesh and vegetable butter. They are 
principally vegetarians.' Concerning salt, he says: 
1 They have a great craving for it. If a child gets a 
piece of rock salt from a European, it eats it as our 
children do sugar. The poorer classes look up a man 
who can afford salt as a rich man. 1 Park's own experi- 
ence was that he had a painful craving for salt, which 
could not be described. On the west coast of Africa a 
man would sell his wife or child for salt. A war for a 
salt-spring between different tribes is not uncommon. 
To them salt is no luxury, but a necessity. . . . 

1 ' Many of the facts and statements of this chapter 
are drawn from German sources, and especially from a 
little work entitled ' Die Modernen Principien der Erna- 
hrung,' nach v. Pettenkofer und Voit, von. Dr. Aug. 
Guckerston, a most valuable little work, putting in popu- 
lar language the scientific experiments of the most 
learned German students of man's food — a subject now 
attracting more attention than at any former time." 

We have in this a direct and conclusive proof that 
salt is needed in a diet of cereals, pulses, and potatoes. 
The well-nigh universal experience of mankind proves 
that a diet of fruit does not call for salt, and its presence 
in such food would be an offense. 



CHAPTER X. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— DR FOTHERGILL 
AND HERBERT SPENCER 

A large business is done in England and America 
in the preparation and sale of foods for infants and 
invalids. It is proclaimed in the literature of the 
various firms who offer these foods for sale that they 
are quite free from starch ; that this substance has been 
converted into soluble dextrin by pre-digestion. The 
late Dr. J. Milner Fothergill, of London, was a very 
successful physician, an able writer, and a painstaking 
student. From a pamphlet entitled " Nutrition for 
Infants and Invalids, with Suggestions from J. Milner 
Fothergill, M. D.," I quote: 

"Gentlemen: — Having requested me to give you 
my opinion, as a food expert, upon your ' Lactate d 
Food,' I do so herewith. You state tkat it contains ' the 
purified gluten of wheat and oats, with barley diastase 
and malt extract combined with specially prepared milk- 
sugar ; ' in other words, that it is self- digestive as regards 
the conversion of insoluble starch into soluble dextrine 
and maltose. My experiments with it lead me to hold 
that this is correct. When lactated food is placed in 
water hot enough to be sipped, a rapid transformation 
of the starch remaining in it (by the diastase it contains) 
goes on; and a nutritive fluid is the result, which 
requires but a minimum of the digestive act. The 
resort to farinaceous matters, pre-digested, must become 
greater and greater as our knowledge of digestion and 
its derangements waxes greater. It is not merely in the 



PRE-DIGESTED FOOD RECOMMENDED. 319 

case of feeble infants that such pre-digested starch and 
milk-sugar are indicated and useful: persons of feeble 
digestion require these soluble carbo-hydrates, which 
they can assimilate." 

Attention is called to the last two sentences of this 
remarkable utterance. Dr. Fothergill tells us that we 
must resort to the pre-digestion of bread and cereal 
foods as our knowledge of digestion increases, and as 
the power of digestion decreases. It will be noticed that 
Dr. Fothergill does not confine these suggestions to 
infants, but includes all persons of feeble digestion — a 
class rapidly increasing, and it would seem, unless 
something be done to avert it, soon to include a majority 
of mankind. There can be no doubt that it would be 
an advantage to discover a food which needs no pre- 
digestion, and which would take the place of those 
farinaceous foods — bread and cereals — that must be pre- 
digested to be easy of assimilation. 

From a valuable chapter in Dr. Holbrook's book en- 
titled " Eating for Strength," the following quotation is 
taken (pages 133 and 134): 

' ' An important part of the grape is its sugar, which 
may be as high as 30 per cent., or as low as 10 per cent. 
The warmer and drier the weather at the time of the 
ripening the more sugar in the grape, and the less acid 
it is found to contain. . . . From 70 to 80 per cent, is 
water. . . . Grapes are nourishing, but their nourish- 
ing properties are not the same as those of bread and 
meat, for they contain only a small proportion of the 
protein which is required daily." 

If we examine the nourishing elements in bread we 
find that the chief one, starch, is carbonaceous, and that 
it forms about 70 per cent, of the entire nourishing con- 
stituents. This starch subserves precisely the same pur- 
pose in the animal economy that sugar does in the grape, 
the only difference being that the carbonaceous element 
in the bread must undergo two processes of digestion 



320 FRUITS CONTRASTED WITH BREAD. 

before it is assimilable by the system, whereas the same 
element in the grape requires no digestion, and is ready 
for assimilation as soon as eaten. It is quite true that 
the gluten of wheat is nitrogenous, and when digested 
serves to sustain muscular action; but it is also true 
that this portion of bread is very difficult to digest, and 
that nitrogen in this shape is apt to pass through the 
system without digestion. This is at the foundation of 
the term " bread and meat " which Dr. Holbrook uses; 
the bread is eaten chiefly for its heat-giving elements, 
and the meat for it nitrogen and oil. If grapes be sub- 
stituted for bread, we have the phrase " grapes and 
meat," or, more generically, " fruit and meat." Let us 
analyze this statement, and note the results. 

Since flour has about 70 per cent, of starch, and 
bread is about half water, a pound of bread will have 3 5 
to 40 per cent, of carbonaceous food. According to Dr. 
Holbrook, under favourable conditions of the grape, a 
pound furnishes 30 per cent, of carbonaceous food (dif- 
fering from that of bread only in the greater ease of its 
digestion), and when we can obtain such grapes a pound 
is equal, so far as the principal nourishing element is 
concerned, to three-quarters of a pound of bread. In 
the most unfavourable condition of the grape three 
pounds are required to equal one pound of bread. 

It is to be remembered, however, that the water of 
which 70 to 80 per cent, of this fruit is composed is dis- 
tilled water, not only free from all earthy matter, but 
free from any danger that may be lurking in the ma- 
chinery which is used for the production of artificially 
distilled water; and hence, even if three pounds of 
grapes were eaten in lieu of the one pound of bread, 
with the meat, or eggs and milk, or nuts, there is the 
great advantage of its providing the system with the 
needed liquid in the healthiest and most desirable possi- 
ble condition. We quote further from Dr. Holbrook : 



ADVANTAGES OF A FRUIT DIET. 321 

1 1 The physiological effects of the grape are signifi- 
cant. Eaten with other suitable food . . . they increase 
nutrition, promote secretion, improve the action of the 
liver, kidneys, and bowels, and add to the health. The 
sugar of the grape requires no digestion, but is taken 
almost at once into the blood, where it renders up its 
force as required; so also, of the water. The dextrin 
of the grape promotes the secretion of pepsin, and this 
favours digestion. . . . The phosphoric acid, of which 
there is considerable, acts most favourably on all the 
bodily functions, and especially on the brain. . . . 
Grapes, say several authorities, act very much like min- 
eral waters upon the system ; but they must be more 
beneficial than mineral waters because they nourish, and 
their effect on the nerves is augmented by their more 
agreeable taste. Eaten moderately, with a suitable diet, 
they will not produce cathartic effects, but a more nat- 
ural action of the bowels, so important to health ; or, if 
eaten in large quantities, they are generally laxative. 
As soon as this occurs, obstructions disappear, and a feel- 
ing of comfort arises which is very gratifying to the 
sufferer." 

It is not strange that Dr. Holbrook and other able 
physicians should be aware of the nourishing elements 
of the grape, the very great importance of its distilled 
water, and its highly beneficial effect upon the nerves 
and system generally; still, it did not occur to these 
physicians to substitute the grape for bread. It is a new 
proposition involving a mental readjustment to wholly 
appreciate its bearings. But when all these facts are 
brought to the impartial reader's mind, — when we con- 
sider that, according to Dr. Fothergill, bread and cereals 
are of such a nature that it is desirable to predige k st 
them in order to avoid vital strain and an undue waste of 
nervous energy, and when we consider that according to 
Dr. Holbrook the grape is rich in the same nourishing 
elements that constitute the larger share of the nourish- 
ment in bread, that this element in the grape needs no 



322 CONFIRMED BY HERBERT SPENCER. 

digestion, that it is taken up and assimilated by the sys- 
tem without the expenditure of any vital energy, that it 
abounds in that liquid which perhaps is the only natural 
and wholesome drink for man, that it is rich in acids that 
stimulate the excretory functions of the system, and en- 
sure the purification of the blood, and evoke ' ' a feeling 
of comfort very gratifying to the sufferer," — when all 
these facts are considered, are there not the strongest 
grounds for the contention that bread and cereals are not 
a wholesome food, and for asking the reader to make the 
experiment of a diet of fruit and meat instead of the 
bread and meat in use throughout the civilized world. 

The claim that bread is relatively insipid, — that fruit, 
as compared with bread, is more sapid and enjoyable, — ■ 
that there is a crying need, in the selection of food, for 
the choice of those varieties allowing greatest economy 
in the expenditure of vital force, and that the great 
desideratum is to have a * ' diet which combines, as much 
as possible, nutritiousness and digestibility, " is well 
supported by the following quotations from the writings 
of Herbert Spencer, taken from his work on education, 
pages 135, 136, and 140: 

' ' Consider the ordinary tastes and the ordinary treat- 
ment of children. The love of sweets is conspicuous 
and almost universal among them. Probably ninety- 
nine people in a hundred presume that there is nothing 
more in this than gratification of the palate ; and that, 
in common with other sensual desires, it should be dis- 
couraged. The physiologist, whose discoveries lead him 
to an ever-increasing reverence for the arrangement of 
things, suspects something more in this love of sweet 
than is currently supposed; and inquiry confirms the 
suspicion. He finds that sugar plays an important part 
in the vital processes. Both saccharine and fatty matters 
are eventually oxidized in the body ; and there is an ac- 
companying evolution of heat. Sugar is the form to 
which sundry other compounds have to be reduced be- 



BREAD INSIPID, FRUIT WHOLESOME. 323 

fore they are available as heat-making food; and this 
formation of sugar is carried on in the body. Not only 
is starch changed into sugar in the course of digestion, 
but it has been proved by M. Claude Bernard that the 
liver is a factory in which other constituents of food are 
transformed into sugar; the need for sugar being so 
imperative that it is even thus produced from nitrog- 
enous substances when no others are given. Now, 
when to the fact that children have a marked desire for 
this valuable heat-food, we join the fact that they have a 
usually marked dislike to that food which gives out the 
greatest amount of heat during oxidation (namely, fat), 
we have reason for thinking that excess of the one com- 
pensates for defect of the other — that the organism de- 
mands more sugar because it cannot deal with much fat. 
Again, children are fond of vegetable acids. Fruits of 
all kinds are their delight ; and, in the absence of any- 
thing better, they will devour unripe gooseberries, and 
the sourest of crabs. Now, not only are vegetable acids, 
in common with mineral ones, very good tonics, and 
beneficial as such when taken in moderation ; but they 
have, when administered in their natural forms, other 
advantages. 'Ripe fruit,' says Dr. Andrew Combe, 'is 
more freely given on the Continent than in this country ; 
and, particularly when the bowels act imperfectly, it is 
often very useful.' See, then, the discord between the 
instinctive wants of children and their habitual treat- 
ment. Here are two dominant desires, which in all 
probability express certain needs of the child's constitu- 
tion ; and not only are they ignored in the nursery 
regimen, but there is a general tendency to forbid the 
gratification of them. Bread and milk in the morning, 
tea and bread and butter at night, or some dietary 
equally insipid, is rigidly adhered to. . . . We contend 
that, were children allowed daily to partake of those 
more sapid edibles for which there is a physiological re- 
quirement, they would rarely exceed, as they now mostly 
do when they have the opportunity; were fruits, as Dr. 
Combe recommends, ' to constitute a part of the regular 
food' (given as he advises not between meals, but along 
with them) there would be none of that craving which 



324 VITAL FORCE SAVED BY PROPER FOOD. 

prompts the devouring of crabs and sloes. And simi- 
larly in other cases. . . . 

"This relatively greater need for nutriment being 
admitted, as it must be, the , question that remains is — 
shall we meet it by giving an excessive quantity of what 
may be called dilute food, or a more moderate quantity 
of concentrated food ? The nutriment obtainable from a 
given weight of meat is obtainable only from a larger 
weight of bread, or from a still larger weight of pota- 
toes, and so on. To fulfill the requirement, the quantity 
must be increased as the nutritiveness is diminished. 
Shall we, then, respond to the extra wants of the grow- 
ing child by giving an adequate quantity of food as good 
as that of adults? Or, regardless of the fact that its 
stomach has to dispose of a relatively larger quantity 
even of this good food, shall we further tax it by giving 
an inferior food in still greater quantity? 

"The answer is tolerably obvious. The more the 
labour of digestion is economized, the more energy is 
left for the purpose of growth and action. The func- 
tions of the stomach and intestines cannot be performed 
without a large supply of blood and nervous power ; and 
in the comparative lassitude that follows a hearty meal, 
every adult has proof that this supply of blood and 
nervous power is at the expense of the system at large. 
If the requisite nutriment is obtained from a great quan- 
tity of innutritious food, more work is entailed on the 
viscera than when it is obtained from a moderate quan- 
tity of nutritious food. This extra work is so much 
loss, which in children shows itself either in diminished 
energy or in smaller growth, or in both. The inference 
is, then, that they should have a diet which combines, as 
much as possible, nutritiveness and digestibility." 

The foregoing quotations are especially remarkable 
because Mr. Spencer stigmatizes bread and milk and 
bread and butter as insipid, and also praises fruit as 
savoury and wholesome. Mr. Spencer had the insight 
to perceive the important part which sugar plays in the 
animal economy, and that starch must be changed into 
sugar before it is available for the organism. Mr. 



DRS. FOTHERGILL AND HOLBROOK CONFIRM. 325 

Spencer goes further, and points out that conformity to 
physiologic law requires that we should have a diet 
" which combines, as much as possible, nutritiveness and 
digestibility," — in other words, that we must seek that 
food which gives the greatest amount of nourishment 
for the least amount of digestive strain. The claim put 
forward in this work is that the sweet fruits of the south 
constitute the larger share of man's natural food, and 
this theory explains why it is that all sorts and conditions 
of people demand large portions of sugar, in some form 
or other, in their dietary ; and is a still further explana- 
tion of why children are so persistent in their efforts to 
obtain it, and of their eagerness for fruit. If it had 
occurred to Mr. Spencer that starch foods, after remain- 
ing in the first stomach during the time that nitroge- 
nous substances are being digested, must then be passed 
on to the intestines for digestion ; and that in the sweet 
fruits we are abundantly provided with the same heat- 
giving nourishment which, in the words of Dr. Hol- 
brook, " requires no digestion, but is taken almost at 
once into the blood, where it renders up its forces as is 
required," — if Mr. Spencer's attention had been called 
to these facts, he would have had additional and con- 
firmatory reasons for his objection to the ' ' insipid " bread, 
and for favouring the substitution of fruit in our diet. 
Mr. Spencer pleads for a food that is nutritious and 
digestible ; Dr. Fothergill, acquainted with the physio- 
logic difficulties in the digestion of bread and cereals, 
seriously proposes their pre-digestion ; and the logical 
deductions from Dr. Holbrook are, however unconscious 
to himself, in favour of the substitution of fruits for that 
which has heretofore been considered the staff of life. 

If there arises in the mind of the reader the objection 
that grapes are only in their best estate for a few weeks, 
and therefore make but a poor shift as a substitute for 
bread, reply is made that in most extensive areas in 



326 GRAPES INSTEAD OF BREAD. 

America, including Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kan- 
sas, and other states, the Concord grape is grown quite 
as free from uncertainties as wheat, and quite as sure to 
yield yearly crops. Moreover, this grape ripens to per- 
fection, and is most delicious and wholesome — rich in 
sugar, distilled water, and those acids which at once give 
gustatory pleasure and make for the health of the sys- 
tem. A little care and skill in plucking these grapes at 
the proper time, packing in cotton or sawdust, or like 
material, and storing in a suitable dry room, insures 
their keeping for six months or more in an excellent 
state of perservation ; and when a small fraction of the 
capital and skill now expended in the storing and preser- 
vation of wheat is given to the preservation of this fruit, 
it will be found to keep in a very wholesome condition, 
at slight expense. When they are fully ripe and in the 
best condition for eating, if heated to the boiling point, 
and then placed in glass jars and hermetically sealed, 
they will keep a long time. This fruit would of itself 
furnish in the areas mentioned all the distilled water and 
carbonaceous food required by millions of human be- 
ings. Perhaps an objector suggests that this food would 
become monotonous. No such objection obtains against 
bread. It is the custom everywhere to eat it daily, and 
almost at every meal ; and it will be found by all who 
give the fruit diet a trial that fruit taken daily, and at 
each meal, in conjunction with those foods which yield 
nitrogen and oil, does not pall, but, on the contrary, con- 
tinues to yield gustatory satisfaction for an indefinite 
period. 



CHAPTER XI. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— COMPARATIVE 
ANATOMY. 

Powerful proofs in support of the hypothesis that 
fruit and nuts are the natural food of man are found in 
the teachings of naturalists, and in the science of com- 
parative anatomy. Linnaeus, in his work ' ' De Februm 
Intermitt. Causa" (Vol. X., p. 8), speaking of the cause 
of intermittent fevers, says : ' ' Fruit-eating also is blamed 
without reason. This food is the very best suited to 
man, as the races of quadrupeds testify. By analogy, 
men of the wood — apes — by the formation of the mouth, 
and belly, and hands, testify. The same experience 
holds good with the wood-inhabiting Scanes, whose land 
is so fertile in fruit of this kind that they sell their su- 
perfluous quantities to their neighbours, and yet fevers 
are exceedingly rare among them." Linnaeus is also 
quoted by Knight as asserting that the region of palms 
was the first country of the human race, and that man is 
essentially palmivorous. Cuvier, in his "Animal 
Kingdom" (Vol. I., p. 38), thus alludes to the subject 
in an article on the " Peculiar Conformation of Man" : 
" The natural food of man, judging from his structure, 
appears to consist of the fruits, roots, and other succulent 
parts of vegetables ; his hands afford him every facility 
for gathering them ; his short and but moderately strong 
jaws, on the one hand, and his canine teeth being equal 
in length to the remaining teeth, and his tubercular 
molars, on the other, would allow him neither to feed 



328 TESTIMONY OF HUXLEY AND HA ECKEL. 

on grass nor to devour flesh were these aliments not 
previously prepared by cooking." 

Professor Huxley says : ' ' Whatever part of the 
animal structure, whether series of muscles or viscera, 
we select as a basis of comparison, the result is the same. 
The lower monkeys and the gorilla differ more widely 
than do the gorilla and man." 

The following is quoted from " Fruit and Bread," by 
Gustave Schlickeyson, translated from the German by 
Dr. Holbrook:* 

"MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 

"Concerning man's true place in nature, Haeckel 
says : ' Whatever part of the body we consider, we find, 
upon the most exact examination, that man is more 
nearly related to the highest apes (pure frugivora) than 
are the latter to the lowest apes. It would therefore be 
wholly forced and unnatural to regard man in the zoo- 
logical system as constituting a distinct order, and thus 
to separate him from the true ape. Rather is the scien- 
tific zoologist compelled, whether it is agreeable to him 
or not, to rank man within the order of the true ape 
(simia). 

"To whatever minutse of detail the comparison is 
carried, we reach in every case the same result. Be- 
tween man and the anthropoid apes there are the closest 
anatomical and physiological resemblances. In form 
and function there is the most exact agreement between 
all the corresponding bones of the skeleton of each ; the 
same arrangement and structure of the muscles, nerves 
and entire viscera, and of the spleen, liver, and lungs — 
the latter being a matter of especial significance, for 
between the manner of breathing and the process of 
nutrition there is the closest relation. 

"The brain, also, is subject to the same laws of 
development, and differs only with regard to size. The 
minute structure of the skin, nails, and even the hair, is 



*New York, M. L. Holbrook & Co., $i; London, L. N. Fowler, Ludgate 
Circus, 4 shillings. 



PROVEN BY THE MICROSCOPE. 329 

identical in character. Although man has lost the greater 
part of his hairy covering, as Darwin thinks in consequence 
of sexual selection, yet the rudimentary hairs upon the 
body correspond, in many respects, to those of the an- 
thropoids. The formation of the beard is the same in 
both cases ; while the face and ears remain bare. An- 
thropoids and men become gray-haired in old age. 
But the most remarkable circumstance is that upon the 
upper arm the hairs are, in both cases, directed down- 
ward, and upon the lower arm upward; while in the 
case of the half-apes it is different, and not as soft as that 
of man and the anthropoids. 

* ' The eye, on account of its delicate structure, is 
peculiarly suitable for comparisons of this kind ; and we 
find here the greatest similarity ; even inflammation and 
green cataract occur, under the same circumstances, in 
both. See, also, Darwin upon this point. 

11 There is no more striking proof that man and the 
anthropoid apes have the same anatomical and physio- 
logical nature, and require the same food, than the 
similarity of their blood. Under the microscope the 
blood corpuscles are identical in form and appearance ; 
while those of the carnivora are clearly different from 
them. 

' ' It may now be interesting, in confirmation of what 
has been said, to refer to the family life, and, if one 
may so speak, to the mental and moral life of the an- 
thropoids. Like man, the ape provides with exceeding 
care for its young, so that its parental affection has 
become proverbial. Connubial fidelity is the general 
and well-known virtue. The mother ape leads its young 
to the water and washes its face and hands in spite of 
its crying. Wounds are also washed out with water. 
The ape when in distress will weep like a human being, 
and in a manner that is said to be very affecting. Young 
apes manifest the same tendencies as human children. 
When domesticated, they are in youth docile and teach- 
able, and also, at times, like all children, disobedient. 
In old age they often become morose and capricious. 
Most apes construct huts, or at least roofs, as a protec- 
tion from the weather, and sleep in a kind of bed. 



330 MANY TRAITS IN COMMON. 

One peculiarity is alone common to them and man, and 
this is the habit of lying on the back in sleep. In battle 
they defend themselves with their fists and long sticks ; 
and, under otherwise like circumstances, they manifest 
like passions and emotions with man : as joy and sorrow, 
pain and envy, revenge and sympathy. In death, 
especially, the ape face assumes a peculiarly human- 
like and spiritual expression, and the sufferer is the 
object of as genuine compassion as exists in the case of 
man. It is also well known that apes bury their dead, 
laying the body in a secluded spot, and covering it 
with leaves. Regarding the domestic life of the ape, 
Darwin says, in his 'Descent of Man' (Vol I., p. 39): 
* We see maternal affection manifested in the most 
trifling details. Thus Rengger observed an Ameri- 
can monkey (a cebus) carefully driving away the flies 
which plagued her infant, and Duvancel saw a hylobates 
washing the faces of her young ones in a stream. So 
intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss of 
their young, that it invariably caused the death of 
certain kinds, kept under confinement by Brehm in 
North Africa. Orphan monkeys were always adopted, 
and carefully cared for by other monkeys, both males and 
females. One female baboon had so capacious a heart, 
that she not only adopted young monkeys of other 
species, but stole young dogs and cats, which she con- 
tinually carried about with her. Her kindness did not 
go so far, however, as to share her food with her adopted 
offspring ; at which Brehm was surprised, as his mon- 
keys divided everything quite fairly with their own 
young ones. An adopted kitten scratched the above- 
mentioned affectionate baboon, who certainly had a fine 
intellect, for she immediately examined the kitten's feet 
and without more ado bit off the claws.' " 

In Wylde's " Royal Natural History" mention is 
made of the diet of the long-armed ape or gibbon, as be- 
ing that of fruits and nuts of all kinds. On page 65 of 
Cassell's " Natural History" (Vol. I., 1883, pp. 65-78), a 
quotation is given from the Travels of A. R. Wallace, 
concerning the diet of the orang-outang, as follows : 



DIET OF LONG-ARMED APES. 331 

" * Their food consists almost exclusively of fruit, 
with occasional leaves, buds, and young shoots. They 
seem to prefer unripe fruits, some of which were very 
sour, others intensely bitter, particularly the large, red, 
fleshy arillus, or rind of one which seemed an especial 
favourite. In other cases they eat only the small seed 
of a large fruit, and they always waste and destroy more 
than they eat. The durion is an especial favourite, and 
quantities of this delicious fruit are destroyed wherever 
it grows surrounded by forest, but they will not cross 
clearings to get at them. It seems wonderful how the 
animal can tear open this fruit, the outer covering of 
which is so thick and rough, and closely covered with 
strong conical spines. It probably bites off a few of 
them first, and then, making a small hole, tears open the 
fruit with its powerful fingers. On page 75 of same 
work, it is said as to the gibbons : ' They are quiet, in- 
offensive animals. Liking milk occasionally, they still 
mainly feed on fruit and leaves, and hence the nature of 
their teeth, the size of their jaws, and the capacity of 
their brain-cases may be fairly anticipated.' " 

J. G. Perceval Wright, in his translation of L. 
Figuier's "Mammalia," says on page 579: 

' ' The gibbons live in numerous troops or families in 
the great forests of Cochin China and the kingdom of 
Siam. They are omnivorous, but prefer fruits and 
roots. In the wild state they refuse animal food (flesh), 
but are extremely fond of insects." (From p. 572:) 
" The food of the guenon monkey or cercopitheci is 
varied : they chiefly live on roots, leaves, and fruits. 
They also eat the eggs of birds, insects, sometimes even 
molluscs, and they are particularly partial to honey." 

In the same book, at page 589, a quotation is given 
from DuChaillu concerning the diet of the gorilla : 

' ' The gorilla lives in the loneliest and most sombre 
parts of the forests of western Africa. It always keeps 
near a running stream, but being essentially a nomadic 
animal it rarely remains for many days together in the 
same place. The reason for this wandering habit is to 
be found in the difficulty it experiences in procuring 



33 2 WHY THE GORILLA EATS SEEDS. 

its favourite foods, which are fruits, seeds, nuts, and 
banana leaves, also the young shoots of this plant, the 
juice of which it sucks, and other vegetable substances. 
Notwithstanding its powerful canine teeth, and its ex- 
traordinary strength, the gorilla is really an exclusively 
frugivorous animal. As it eats much, when it has dev- 
astated for its personal consumption a somewhat exten- 
sive space it is forced to go elsewhere in order to pro- 
vide for the exigencies of its stomach. This is the rea- 
son why it periodically abandons certain regions to 
reach others which have become more fruitful through 
changes in the season." 

It will be noted that Mr. Wallace reports that in 
some instances these animals eat only the small seeds of 
a large fruit, wasting and destroying the fruit itself. 
This is undoubtedly because at such times they have al- 
ready had all the carbonaceous elements which the sys- 
tem requires, and their instinct teaches them to seek for 
nuts, and the small seeds contained in these sweet fruits 
are largely nitrogenous, undoubtedly oily, and the near- 
est approach to nuts within their ability to procure. Mr. 
Wright reports that while these animals live chiefly on 
fruits and refuse animal flesh, they are extremely fond 
of insects. In this we find a hint of the origin among 
mankind of the habit of eating snails, shrimps, and the 
like, and some tribes of Indians are said to be especially 
fond of ants. While undoubtedly primitive man would, 
like the gibbon, refuse the flesh of animals, he would be 
very likely, in the absence of nuts, with their stores of 
nitrogen and oil, to substitute similar foods, as those be- 
fore mentioned; and the habit of eating oysters and 
other shell-fish is analogous to the custom of eating such 
insects and birds' eggs as prove to be within the reach 
of those wild men who are chiefly supported by sweet 
fruits, and who are not able to procure nuts from which 
to get their needed nitrogen and oil. 

As before remarked, mankind has been so long 



APES DO NOT USE CEREALS. 333 

accustomed to the use of bread and cereals that writers 
on natural history have taken it as a matter of course 
that the ape subsisted on fruits, nuts, and grains ; but 
any student who will search authorities on this topic will 
see that there is no foundation for the supposition that 
these animals used grains, or starch foods in any form. 
In the first place, nature does not often provide them ; 
secondly, naturalists and travelers who have reported on 
their habits do not mention cereals and starch foods as 
forming any part of it ; and third, there is every proba- 
bility that if such foods were offered to them in their 
wild state they would be refused as long as fruits and 
nuts could be found. It is quite true that in captivity 
these animals eat grains as readily as man, but, like man, 
they do not eat them until they are cooked ; and, like 
man again, those animals in captivity are full of disease 
and short-lived. 

The following table, which is largely made up from 
the one given in Schlickeysen's " Bread and Fruit," 
page 68, gives a bird's-eye view of the salient arguments 
in favour of the hypothesis that man belongs to the fru- 
givorous species, and has no relation whatever either to 
the carnivora, the omnivora, or the herbivora. The 
reader has but to give a casual glance at the anatomi- 
cal differences between man and the before-mentioned 
species, and at the identity between man and the ape 
in his anatomical and physiological conformation, to be 
convinced that whatever is the natural food of the ape is 
surely the natural food of man. 

Taking the seventeen anatomical and physiological 
characteristics tabulated — excluding the matter of diet — 
the extraordinary fact presents itself that man is identi- 
cal with the ape in every single particular, and widely 
differs from the other three species given in nearly all. 
Not to dwell upon these points in detail, — not to point 
out the matter of teeth, which is universally recognized 



334 MAN'S STOMACH UNCHANGED BY EVOLUTION. 

as having an important bearing in the classification of 
animals, — attention is called to the first point, the matter 
of the placenta, ■ which Professor Huxley favours as 
being the best basis for the classification of species. 

Since the non-starch hypothesis has been put forward, 
and during the past two years, in answer to the point to 
which especial emphasis has been directed, viz., that a 
large proportion of the digestion of starch is relegated to 
the duodenum, or second stomach, and is an unnecessary 
waste of vital force, it has been urged that, not un- 
likely, these organs in man have been developed from 
the long use of such starch foods; and, in accordance 
with the theory of evolution, that whatever man might 
have been in his primitive condition, he may be now in 
possession of a physical organism developed and spe- 
cially adapted for the digestion of starch foods. It will 
be seen that the ape has precisely the same stomach and 
duodenum, and hence there is not the slightest evidence 
that the theory of sexual selection, or race development, 
has changed the problem in the slightest degree; and 
while man, like the ape in captivity, can subsist on 
cooked cereal foods, there is every reason to believe that 
man, as he is to-day, is, like the wild man of the woods, 
naturally adapted to the digestion of fruit and nuts ; and 
in so far as he can be prevailed upon to substitute these I 
fruits for the cereal foods which are now the basis of his 
diet, he will regain by degrees a vigour as superior to 
that he now enjoys as the anthropoid in his native 
wilds is superior to the same animal after years of an 
artificial life in captivity. 

The following is the table referred to above; and 
which, in itself alone, points out the natural food of 
man; 



I! 

ft <o 
o o 



■8 

w>:d o 



"S 3 * &s 



T3 
CO 

a, 
q 

> 

-d£ 
i-i CO 



II 



a, 



o o 

Is 

pqQ 



44 



C 
O 

CO 

•a 

c 

£ w> 

£ S £ 

S^ g'cn 



o 

Cd 

CD 

> to jj 

"d c .5 „_. -h " aJ 
^JH-g^ g S ^ 

CO bjO-ii rt c d^ 

3 IS 






1* 



-a 

** o 

° d 
.d o 

fcuD — 



-m ® 



0) 3 

> C 



ft 



,►» d 
J3 > 



2| 

C-H 

cu -d 
.53 a 

ft en 
^d 
rt c 

So 

.22 £ 



<o 



-J. 

.d to |r O 



•d 

cu 

ft 
O 



-i CO 



si 
Mi 

j_j d 
* § 



IOLO 

44 



CCj 
(O 

ft. 

O 

> 



c 
o 

co 

d 
. at 

v -So 




W3^ 

CO e £ M "• 

£.£ .2 £ 
SB-Si** 






n co ±* d 



0) 



CO 

,J o 



p ^ 6 !2yr-.S 



a)-d g d.d 

CO W)^ Ctf fl d X> 



d o 



i»d 

— ' o 

u 



co d 
> c 



d 
'o 

-s 



co ^ 
JS o 

CUttH 



E^S 



§ |8L&§§ 

a . en ojS s • 

--2^-c $ ftb^ 



d vd 



>>c 






d d 

•d ai S 
■V ft . u 

a as 






> 

co t3 p- 

CO W)CId 



£ 
o 

.§8 

0) C f_ 
d OX3 

btfd-H 

lis 



U .d CO tyO 

•d*9 s - 



.5 c o m ° 
S 



43 co 

■e-d 

ft cd 



d co --.5 



o d"go jg-a 



• - > cy <- — c 

ir.d ^ ftc ca 
■d S?^rt"^ 



CO 

.-d 
'd ^ 

« en 
"d «J 

d bj . 
P w>42 
> d 
S c « 

o ft 



3 w>' 

O c 



^ a 



co "d 
co d 
t> cci 



to 



^ to 

CO g 

"d b 






•d to 

CO 73 

CO f-< i— i < . 

> J .5 3 00 00 

0) ^ ^ S M M 

^ cu co o Jf>5T> 

^ c3^3 ^ ^ 

.55 o o co«x» 

^ 2Q 



•d d 

g- ■§ 

co *d 

> « s 

co -d d 
*? d a) 
^^ > 
co b/j'-d 



d 
co 

+• c 
JS o 
O en 

C/3H 



cS a 

3i8 

m ^2 CO 






C-S C— en 



§ on -J3 W>*43*3 

8-85151 

d a 



cj3 



ft 

tn *d 

co c 

> a 







CO 

•43 "d 

73 cj . 
c-dx: 

OVM O 

- ° 2 

2^ £ 
c is to 

"+j W> e 

<u co .2 
^ U 



CHAPTER XII. 

CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— FRUITS AND NUTS 
VERSUS CEREALS. 

The following extended quotations from Knight's 
" Vegetable Food of Man" furnish ample food for 
thought. By this authority it is made plain that cereals 
are not the production of nature, but are developed from 
grass seed by the aid of man ; that, although used by 
the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, they did not form 
such a large factor in the diet of those peoples as they 
do in modern life, because of the very considerable use 
by the ancients of figs, dates, and olives. Fruits and 
nuts, on the other hand, grow wild in many parts of the 
earth, and are spontaneously produced by nature in great 
abundance and of exquisite flavour and quality. Unlike 
cereals, which require yearly planting, many fruit and 
nut trees live to a great age, and plantations continue 
producing abundant crops for fifty and a hundred years. 

It is not strange that primitive peoples, unaware of 
the needed elements of food, and of the processes of di- 
gestion, should have substituted cereals for fruits. 
Cereals have the great advantage of keeping for years 
without the exercise of any particular skill in their har- 
vesting or preparation, and are naturally adapted for 
transportation, and for withstanding all climates. They 
are also better adapted to the temperate zone than those 
fruits with which the ancients were acquainted. These 
grains are also rich in elements of food, except free oil ; 
and while men are in vigourous health they are amply 



NECESSITY STIMULATES DEVELOPMENT. 337 

nourished on these foods. Moreover, when at 30, 40 or 
60 years their health is broken down, they are not aware 
of the cause that produced it, so insidiously or in such 
varied disguise does decrepitude creep on. Again, the 
primitive nations, while thoroughly nourished on the 
fruits which were spontaneously produced, did not pos- 
sess the requisite scientific knowledge to enable them to 
so prepare these fruits that they would keep through the 
various seasons of the year, and could be transported 
from place to place. 

Doubtless it is a part of the Divine plan by which 
the development of the race is to be perfected and can 
be naturally accomplished, that man should have such 
stimulants as may be necessary for the development of 
latent powers. As is clearly pointed out in the following 
quotations, men knowing nothing of the arts and scien- 
ces, who are but mere children at the age of adults, are 
yet enabled by a few roods of ground planted with 
bananas adjoining their huts, to provide themselves 
from year to year an ample and satisfying food with 
a minimum of effort. In such a condition, men who 
are not driven to industry or thrift seem to make no 
progress. On the other hand, migrating to a more 
northern latitude, where there is necessity for industry 
in the summer time to provide for the winter's need, 
there is the requisite stimulus for development, and the 
northern races, who through hardship and toil have 
developed their powers, offer a striking contrast to the 
slothful and resourceless denizen of the tropics. More- 
over, it will be perceived by the philosophical mind that 
the crowning heights of man's moral nature are reached 
through suffering; and if it be granted that the use 
of cereals and starch foods necessarily overtaxes and 
undermines the vital force and nervous system, and 
prepares the way for disease and consequent suffering, 
it is not difficult to see that this very discipline may be 



338 A DIVINE PLAN. 

a part of the Divine plan for the development of the 
race. After man has attained, by the necessities and 
hardships of climatic conditions, to the possession of 
larger mental and spiritual powers, and to an apprecia- 
tion of the value of knowledge, there is no longer any 
need for his continuing in ignorance of the laws of his 
physical being ; and there is no reason why he may not 
enjoy all the advantages of the prolific, economic, and 
physiologic fruit diet, and at the same time preserve 
and perpetuate his appreciation of the arts and sciences 
and his determination to carry their development to 
further perfection. 

When the first inhabitants were cast out of Eden, 
and condemned to earn their bread by the sweat of their 
brow — the culture of the soil, the planting of cereals — 
there was placed a flaming sword over the gateway to 
prevent their return. Another gateway must be found. 
They departed from a state of innocence in ignorance ; 
when they return they must return through knowledge. 
And with knowledge, and a full appreciation of every 
department of science and art, upon a return to a simple 
life, and to a diet of fruits and nuts, and upon finding 
the resultant leisure and vigour, there will be no danger 
of a return to sloth and ignorance. 

"The Fig (Ficus carted). — The traditions of the 
.Greeks carry the origin of the fig back to the remotest 
antiquity. It was probably known to the people of the 
east before the Cerealia (wheat, barley, etc.), and stood 
in the same relation to men living in the primitive con- 
dition of society as the banana does to the Indian tribes 
of South America at the present day. With little trouble 
of cultivation it supplied their principal necessities, and 
offered, not an article of occasional luxury, but of con- 
stant food, whether in a fresh or dried state. As we 
proceed to a more advanced period in the history of the 
species, we still find the fig an object of general atten- 
tion. The want of blossom on the fig tree was consid- 
ered as one of the most grievous calamities by the Jews. 



THE FIG A FOOD OF THE ANCIENTS. 339 

Cakes of figs were included in the presents of provisions 
by which the widow of Nabal appeased the wrath of 
David.* In Greece, when Lycurgus decreed that the 
Spartan men should dine in a common hall, flour, wine, 
cheese and figs were the principal contributions of each 
individual to the common stock. The Athenians con- 
sidered figs an article of such necessity that their expor- 
tation from Attica was prohibited. Either the tempta- 
tion to evade this law must have been great, or it must 
have been disliked ; for the name which distinguished 
those who informed against the violators of this law be- 
came a name of reproach from which we obtain our 
word sycophant. As used by our older writers, syco- 
phant means a tale-bearer ; and the French employ the 
word to signify a liar and imposter generally — not a 
flatterer merely. At Rome the fig was carried next to 
the vine in the processions in honour of Bacchus, as the 
patron of plenty and joy ; and Bacchus was supposed to 
have derived his corpulency and vigour not from the 
vine, but from the fig. All these circumstances indi- 
cate that the fig contributed very largely to the support 
of man ; and we may reasonably account for this from 
the facility with which it is cultivated in ' climates of 
moderate temperature. Like the Cere alia, it appears to 
flourish in a very considerable range of latitude; and 
even in our own country frequently produces fine fruit, 
without much difficulty, in the open air. Yet the tree is 
not cultivated generally except in very favourable situa- 
tions; and it must belong to more genial climates to 
realize the ancient description of peace and security, 
which assigns the possession of these best blessings of 
heaven to ' every man under his own fig tree.' . . . 

"The Vine (Vitis vinifera). — The berries of the 
grape, in addition to sugar, contain tartaric acid, and 
might be enumerated among acid foods, but the princi- 
pal use of this fruit, the making of wine, entirely de- 
pends on the property which the sugar possesses of en- 
tering into the vinous fermentation. Of all the berries, 
the grape has, in every age, been held the most in 
esteem. As is the case with the Cerealia, the early his- 

*I. Samuel xxv., 18. 



34Q THE VINE AMD THE DATE. 

tory of the vine is involved in obscurity. The cultiva- 
tion of the grape was probably among the earliest efforts 
of husbandry. ' And Noah began to be an husbandman, 
and he planted a vineyard.'* 

'"The vine,' says Humboldt, 'which we now cul- 
tivate, does not belong to Europe ; it grows wild on the 
coast of the Caspian Sea, in Armenia, and in Caramania. 
From Asia it passed into Greece, and thence into Sicily. 
The Phocaeans carried it into the south of France ; the 
Romans planted it on the banks of the Rhine. The 
species of Vitis which are found wild in North America, 
and which gave the name of the Land of the Vine to the 
first part of the new continent which was discovered by 
Europeans, are very different from our Vitis vinifera.'\ 

"The Date (Phcenix dactyliferd). — The date is one 
of those plants which, in the countries that are congenial 
to their growth, form the principal subsistence of man ; 
and its locality is so peculiar that it cannot, strictly 
speaking, be classed either with the fruits of temperate 
or with those of tropical climates. It holds a certain 
intermediate place; and is most abundant in regions 
where there are few other esculent vegetables to be 
found. There is one district where, in consequence of 
the extreme aridity of the soil, and the want of moisture 
in the air, none of the Cerealia will grow ; that district 
is the margin of the mighty desert which extends, with 
but few interruptions, from the shores of the Atlantic to 
the confines of Persia, an extent of nearly four thousand 
miles. . . . Here the date-palm raises its trunk and 
spreads its leaves, and is the sole vegetable monarch of 
the thirsty land. It is so abundant, and so unmixed 
with anything else that can be considered as a tree in the 
country between the states of Barbary and the desert, 
that this region is designated as the Land of Dates 
(Biledulgerid) ; and upon the last plain, as the desert is 
approached, the only objects that break the dull outline 
of the landscape are the date-palm and the tent of the 
Arab. The same tree accompanies the margin of the 
desert in all its sinuosities ; in Tripoli, in Barca, along 

* Genesis ix., 20. 

f "Geographic des Plantes," 4to., page 126. 



HUMBOLDT AND LINNAEUS ON THE DATE. 341 

the valley of the Nile, in the north of Arabia, and in 
the southeast of Turkey. The region of the date has 
perhaps remained for a longer period unchanged in its 
inhabitants and its productions than any other portion 
of the world. The Ishmaelites, as described in Scripture 
history, were but little different from the Bedouins of 
the present day; and the palm-tree (which in ancient 
history invariably means the date) was of the same use, 
and held in the same esteem, as it is now. When the 
sacred writers wished to describe the majesty and the 
beauty of rectitude, they appealed to the palm as the 
fittest emblem which they could select. ' He shall grow 
up and flourish like the palm-tree,' is the promise which 
the royal poet of Israel makes for the just. . . . The 
Cucurito, a palm of South America, throws out its mag- 
nificent leaves over a trunk a hundred feet high. This 
family of plants diminish in grandeur and beauty as 
they advance towards the temperate zone; and Hum- 
boldt says that those who have only traveled in the 
north of Africa, in Sicily, and in Murcia, cannot con- 
ceive how the palms should be the most imposing in 
their forms of all the trees of the forest. The palms 
of South America furnish food in a variety of ways to 
the people ; so that in those wild districts the assertion 
of Linnaeus forces itself upon the mind, — that the region 
of palms was the first country of the human race, and 
that man is essentially palmivorous. . . . 

< ' The date-palm is a dioecious tree, having the male 
flowers in one plant, and the female, or fruiting ones, in 
another. The male flowers are considerably larger than 
the female; and the latter have in their center the 
ovaries, which are the rudiments of the dates, about the 
size of small peas. ... In every plantation of culti- 
vated dates, one part of the labour of the cultivator con- 
sists in collecting the flowers of the male date, climbing 
to the top of the female with them, and dispersing the 
pollen on the germs of the dates. So essential is this 
operation, that though the male and female trees are 
growing in the same plantation, the crop fails if it be 
not performed. 

* ' Four or five months after the operation of f ecunda- 



342 ARABIA'S NATIONAL FOOD. 

tion has been performed, the dates begin to swell ; and 
when they have attained nearly their full size, they are 
carefully tied to the base of the leaves to prevent them 
from being beaten and bruised by the wind. If meant 
to be preserved they are gathered before they are quite 
ripe ; but when they are intended to be eaten fresh, they 
are allowed to ripen perfectly, in which state they are 
a very refreshing and agreeable fruit. Ripe dates can- 
not, however, be kept any length of time, or conveyed 
to any great distance, without fermenting and becoming 
acid ; and therefore those which are intended for storing 
up, or for being carried to a distant market, are dried in 
the sun upon mats. The dates which come to the Euro- 
pean market from the Levant and Barbary are in this 
state ; and the travelers in the desert often carry with 
them a little bag of dried dates, as there only or their 
chief subsistence during journeys of many hundred 
miles. In some parts of the east, the dates that fall 
from the cultivated trees are left on the ground for the 
refreshment of the wayfaring man. 

" In the Hedjaz, the new fruit, called ruteb, comes 
in at the end of June and lasts two months. The harvest 
of dates is expected with as much anxiety, and attended 
with as general rejoicing, as the vintage of southern 
Europe. The crop sometimes fails, or is destroyed by 
locusts, and then a universal gloom overspreads the pop- 
ulation. The people do not depend upon new fruit 
alone ; but during the ten months of the year when no 
ripe dates can be procured, their principal subsistence is 
the date-paste, called adjoue, which is prepared by press- 
ing the fruit, when fully matured, into large baskets. 
1 What is the price of dates at Mecca or Medina? ' is al- 
ways the first question asked by a Bedouin who meets a 
passenger on the road.* 

' ' There is indeed hardly any part of the tree which 
is not serviceable to man, either as a necessary or a lux- 
ury. When the fruit is completely ripened, it will, by 
strong pressure, yield a delicious syrup, which serves 
for preserving dates and other fruits ; or the fruit may 
be made into jellies and tarts. The stalks of the bunches 

♦Burckhardt's "Arabia." 



BANANAS IN MANY COUNTRIES. 343 

of dates, hard as they are in their natural state, as well 
as the kernels, are softened by boiling, and in that con- 
dition are used for feeding cattle. . . . The fibrinous 
parts of the date tree are made into ropes, baskets, mats, 
and various other articles of domestic use ; and so are 
the strings or stalks that bear the dates. The cordage 
of the ships navigating the Red Sea is made almost 
exclusively of the inner fibrous bark of the date- tree. 
. . . Even the leaves of the date-palm have their uses ; 
their great length and comparatively small breadth and 
their toughness render them very good material for the 
construction of coarse ropes, baskets, panniers, and mats. 
On the continent of Europe palm branches are a regular 
article of 1 rade ; and the religious processions both of 
Christians and Jews, in the greater part of Europe, are 
supplied from some palm forests near the shores of the 
Gulf of Genoa. 

" The cultivation of the date tree is an object of high 
importance in the countries of the east. In the interior 
of Barbary, in great part of Egypt, in the more dry dis- 
tricts of Syria, and in Arabia, it is almost the sole sub- 
ject of agriculture. In the valleys of the Hedjaz there 
are more than a hundred kinds of dates, each of which 
is peculiar to a district, and has its own peculiar virtues. 
Date trees pass from one person to another in the course 
of trade, and are sold by the single tree; and the price 
paid to a girl's father, on marrying her, often consists of 
date-trees.* 

' ' The BANANA {Musa sapientum) is not the property 
of any particular country of the torrid zone, but offers 
its produce indifferently to the inhabitants of equinoctial 
Asia and America, of tropical Africa, and of the islands 
of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Wherever the mean 
heat of the year exceeds 75 ° Fahrenheit, the banana is 
one of the most important and interesting objects for 
the cultivation of man. All hot countries appear equally 
to favor the growth of its fruit ; and it has even been cul- 
tivated in Cuba in situations where the thermometer 
descends to 45 ° Fahrenheit. Its produce is enormous. 
The banana, therefore, for an immense portion of man- 

*Burckhardt's "Arabia." 



344 PROLIFIC YIELD OF BANANAS— HUMBOLDT. 

kind, is what wheat, barley and rye are for the inhabi- 
tants of western Asia and Europe, and what the numer- 
ous varieties of rice are for those of the countries be- 
yond the Indus.* 

' ' The banana is not known in an uncultivated state. 
The wildest tribes in South America, who depend upon 
this fruit for -their subsistence, propagate the plant by 
suckers. Yet an all-bountiful nature is in this case 
ready to diminish the labours of man — perhaps too ready 
for the proper development of his energies, both physi- 
cal and moral. Eight or nine months after the sucker 
has been planted, the banana begins to form its clusters ; 
and the fruit may be collected in the tenth or eleventh 
months. When the stalk is cut, the fruit of which has 
ripened, a sprout is put forth which again bears fruit in 
three months. The whole labour of cultivation which 
is required for a plantation of bananas is to cut the stalks 
laden with ripe fruit, and to give the plants a slight 
nourishment, once or twice a year, by digging round 
the roots. A spot of a little more than a thousand 
square feet will contain from thirty to forty banana 
plants. A cluster of bananas produced on a single plant 
often contains from one hundred and sixty to one hun- 
dred and eighty fruits, and weighs from seventy to 
eighty pounds. But reckoning the weight of a cluster 
only at forty pounds, such a plantation would produce 
more than four thousand pounds of nutritive substance. 
M. Humboldt calculates that as thirty-three pounds of 
wheat, and ninety-nine pounds of potatoes, require the 
same space as that in which four thousand pounds of 
bananas are grown, the produce of bananas is conse- 
quently to that of wheat as 133 : 1, and to that of po- 
tatoes as 44 : 1 . 

' ' The banana ripened in the hot houses of Europe has 
an insipid taste; but yet the natives of both Indies, to 
many million of whom it supplies their principal food, 
eat it with avidity, and are satisfied with the nourish- 
ment it affords. This fruit is a very sugary substance ; 
and in warm countries the natives find such food not 
only satisfying for the moment, but permanently nutri- 

♦Humboldt's ' ' Political Essay on New Spain, " Black's Translation, Vol. 2. 



IMPORTANCE OF OIL. 345 

tive, ... A much greater number of individuals may 
be supported upon the produce of a piece of ground 
planted with bananas, compared with a piece the same 
size in Europe growing wheat. Humboldt estimates the 
proportion as twenty-five to one ; and he illustrates the 
fact by remarking that a European, newly arrived in the 
torrid zone, is struck with nothing so much as the small- 
ness of the spots under cultivation round a cabin which 
contains a numerous family of Indians. 

4 * The ripe fruit of the banana is preserved, like the 
fig, by being dried in the sun. These dried bananas 
are an agreeable and healthy aliment. Meal is extracted 
from the fruit by cutting it in slices, drying it in the 
sun and then pounding it. 

' ' The facility with which the banana can be culti- 
vated has doubtless contributed to arrest the progress of 
improvement in tropical regions. In the new continent 
civilization first commenced on the mountains, in a soil 
of inferior fertility. Necessity awakens industry, and 
industry calls forth the intellectual powers of the human 
race. When these are developed, man does not sit in a 
cabin gathering the fruits of his little patch of bananas, 
asking no greater luxuries, and proposing no higher 
ends of life than to eat and to sleep. He subdues to his 
use all the treasures of the earth by his labour and his 
skill ; and he carries his industry forward to its utmost 
limits by the consideration that he has active duties to 
perform. The idleness of the poor Indian keeps him, 
where he has been for ages, little elevated above the 
inferior animal; the industry of the European, under 
his colder skies, and with a less fertile soil, has sur- 
rounded him with all the blessings of society — its com- 
forts, its affections, its virtues, and its intellectual riches. 

* ' Most plants which possess oil in sufficient abundance 
to render them useful as the diet of man, contain this 
substance in their seeds. The olive (Olea Eur oped) is, 
however, a remarkable exception, and secretes its oil in 
the pericarp or external covering of the seed. The wild 
olive is found indigenous in Syria, Greece, and Africa, 
on the lower slopes of the Atlas. The cultivated one 
grows spontaneously in many parts of Syria, and is 



346 LONGEVITY OF THE OLIVE. 

readily grown in all parts of the shores of the Levant 
that are not apt to be visited by frosty winds. . . . 

" In ancient times, especially, the olive was a tree 
held in the greatest veneration, for then the oil was 
employed in pouring out libations to the gods, while the 
branches formed the wreaths of the victors at the 
Olympic games. It was also used in lubricating the 
human body. Some of the traditions say it was brought 
out of Egypt to Athens by Cecrops; while others affirm 
that Hercules introduced it to Greece on his return from 
his expeditions ; that he planted it upon Mount Olympus 
and set the first example of its use in the games. The 
Greeks had a pretty and instructive fable in their 
mythology, on the origin of the olive. They said that 
Neptune, having a dispute with Minerva as to the name 
of the city of Athens, it was decided by the gods that 
the deity who gave the best present to mankind should 
have the privilege in dispute. Neptune struck the shore, 
out of which sprung a horse ; but Minerva produced an 
olive tree. The goddess had the triumph; for it was 
adjudged that peace, of which the olive is the symbol, 
was infinitely better than war, to which the horse was 
considered as belonging, and typifying. Even in the 
sacred history the olive is invested with more honour 
than any other tree. The patriarch Noah had sent out 
a dove from the ark, but she returned without any token 
of hope. Then ' he stayed yet other seven days ; and 
again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the 
dove came to him in the evening ; and lo, in her mouth 
was an olive branch plucked off ; so Noah knew that the 
waters were abated from the earth.' 

" The veneration for the olive, and also the great 
duration of the tree, appear from the history of one in 
the Acropolis at Athens. Dr. Clarke has this passage in 
his ' Travels,' * in speaking of the temple of Pandrosus : 
' Within this building, so late as the second century, 
was preserved the olive tree mentioned by Apollodorus, 
which was said to be as old as the foundation of the 
citadel. Stuart supposed it to have stood in the portico 
of the temple of Pandrosus (called by him the Pan- 

* Vol. vi., p. 246. 



PRODUCTIVENESS OF THE BRAZIL NUT. 347 

droseum) from the circumstance of the air necessary for 
its support, which could here be admitted between the 
caryatides; but instances of trees that have been pre- 
served to a very great age within the interior of an edi- 
fice inclosed by walls may be adduced.' 

"Brazil Nut, or Juvia (Bertholletia excelsa). This 
is one of the most extraordinary fruits of South America, 
which has been made familiar to us principally by the 
interesting description of Humboldt. It was first noticed 
in a geographical work published in 1633 by Laet, who 
says that the weight of this fruit is so enormous that at 
the period when it falls the savages dare not enter the 
forests without covering their heads and shoulders with 
a strong buckler of wood. The triangular grains which 
the shell of the juvia incloses are known in commerce 
under the name of Brazil nuts ; and it has been errone- 
ously thought that they grow upon the tree in the form 
in which they are imported. 

* ' The tree which produces the juvia is only about 
two or three feet in diameter, but it reaches a height of 
120 feet. The fruit is as large as a child's head. Hum- 
boldt justly observes that nothing can give a more 
forcible idea of the power of vegetable life in the equi- 
noctial zone than these enormous ligneous pericarps. 
In fifty or sixty days a shell is formed half an inch in 
thickness, which it is difficult to open with the sharpest 
instrument. The grains which this shell contains have 
two distinct envelopes. Four or five, and sometimes as 
many as eight of these grains are attached to a central 
membrane. The Capuchin apes are exceedingly fond 
of the seeds of the juvia ; and the noise of the falling 
fruit excites their appetites in the highest degree. The 
natives say that these animals unite their strength to 
break the pericarp with a stone, and thus to obtain the 
coveted nuts. Humboldt doubts this ; but he thinks that 
some of the order of rodentia are able to open the outer 
shell with their sharp teeth applied with unwearied 
pertinacity. When the triangular nuts are spread on 
the ground, all the animals of the forest surround them 
and dispute their possession. The Indians who collect 
these nuts say ' it is the feast of the animals, as well as 



348 FRUIT SUPERIOR TO CEREALS. 

of ourselves;' but they are angry with their rivalry. 
The gathering of the juvia is celebrated with rejoicings, 
like the vintage of Europe." 

It is not practical within the limits of this book to 
quote further regarding the numberless varieties of valu- 
able fruits and nuts. The walnut is an invaluable food 
resource, and is susceptible of cultivation over an im- 
mense area. The apple and the orange, twin queens of 
the north and the south, are not touched upon. But 
enough has been quoted to show the incomparably 
superior possibilities of fruits and nuts as a resource for 
the food of man over cereals and vegetables. It is not 
alone that the earth will produce the support of twenty- 
five or fifty-fold more people from the same area when 
planted with these foods than can be maintained on 
cereals or vegetables. The cereals and vegetables re- 
quire not only a yearly planting, but a frequent addi- 
tion of fertilizers to the soil. Plantations of fruits and 
f nuts remain for years, and in many situations require 
only a minimum amount of manure. 

Science has already pointed a way whereby these 
fruits may be prepared either by drying or by bottling 
to keep for years, and in the dried state they are well 
adapted for transportation. But science has perfected 
another mode for the preservation of the fruits and nuts 
which is inexpensive, and when any considerable propor- 
tion of the race shall adopt these foods as the basis of 
their diet there will be no difficulty in preserving nuts 
and fruits perfectly fresh the year round. A system of 
refrigeration is in use in Boston, Washington, and other 
places whereby any given temperature that may be de- 
sired from below freezing upward is kept uniformly day 
and night, and at the same time the atmosphere is kept 
dry by passing it through the refrigerating process, the 
humidity being precipitated in the cold room in the form 
of frost, and the fruit room is thus kept at any required 



A SPLENDID PROSPECT. 349 

temperature, and as dry as may be desired. There is 
surely nothing finer for the imagination to meditate upon 
than the delights of an abounding harvest of the most 
delicious varieties of fruits and nuts, and of their being 
kept by the art of man during the entire year in the 
most perfect condition. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

VALUE OF FOREST TREES. 

Able authorities on the science of forestry affirm that 
many of the waste places and deserts of the earth once 
teemed with fertility and foliage ; and that the existing 
sterility of these deserts has been brought about by the 
destruction of their forests. The influence of trees 
upon the rainfall, and consequent support of vegetation, 
is so well known that some of the foremost nations are 
fostering tree-culture and taking means to preserve ex- 
isting forests by government enactment. There are' 
schools of forestry in France, Germany, and most Euro- 
pean countries. The following quotation is from Cham- 
bers' Encyclopedia (Edition 1 888-1 892), under the title 
" Arboriculture" : 

" The formation of plantations by the sowing of seed 
is more generally practiced on the Continent than in 
Britain. In this way the vacancies in the natural for- 
ests of France and Germany are filled up, and great 
sandy tracts have been covered with wood on the coasts 
of Denmark, Prussia, and France. This has been ac- 
complished on a scale of extraordinary magnitude in the 
dunes of drifting sand between the rivers Adour and 
Gironde. The operations begun by Bremontier in 1789 
deserve to be mentioned, as perhaps the most important 
operations in arboriculture that have been performed in 
the world. Vast forests of pinaster now occupy what 
was originally loose sand destitute of vegetation. . . . 

" The wholesale destruction of forests in the United 



EFFECT OF TREES ON CLIMATE. 351 

States brought about serious evils ; and of late measures 
have been taken, both by public authorities and private 
persons, for cherishing existing trees and woods, and 
for planting extensively where the ground is bare of 
timber. In some of the Western States especially, where 
the need of shelter for horses, crops, and cattle has been 
found in increasing measure, the movement is now car- 
ried on on a very large scale, trees being planted by 
millions annually." 

The following extract is from The Forester, by James 
Brown, LL.D., under the title "On the Influence of 
Trees on Climate" (p. 8): 

1 ' It is allowed by all who have given their attention 
to the improvements of lands in any country, that the 
rearing up of healthy plantations improves the general 
climate of the neighbourhood ; and the very soil upon 
which forest trees grow is much improved by the gradual 
accumulation of vegetable matter from them. In the 
improvement of all waste lands there ought to be a 
large proportion of trees planted in order to give shelter ; 
for if it be not done these will without doubt be compara- 
tively unproductive." 

And further (pp. 18 and 19): 

"The first and perhaps the greatest effect of judi- 
cious planting is that of shelter to the country in its 
neighbourhood. It is an undoubted fact that the pres- 
ence of trees in any country has the effect of softening 
the storms and cold of its winters, as well as of soften- 
ing the heats of its summers, and preventing the great 
evaporation of moisture from its surface which inevi- 
tably takes place under a contrary state of things. The 
drying effect of the absence of trees is exemplified on 
a large scale in North America at the present day. 
Wherever the axe of the settler has been in operation 
for a considerable length of time, there we have our- 
selves seen the beds of former water-courses ploughed, 
and only observable as such by their hollow lines run- 
ning through the farms. The settlers told us that when 
they first came into the forest these hollow lines ran 
with a never- failing supply of water, and that they 



352 RESULT OF DESTROYING TREES. 

gradually became dry as the woods were cleared and the 
land subjected to the plough and the hot rays of the sun. 
Hundreds of families that we have visited in British 
North America have told us that they had been obliged 
to change the sites of their original locations simply be- 
cause the streams on the sides of which they had sat 
down, expecting to have an unlimited supply of water, 
had dried up as they cleared the land of its tree crop. 

' * But we need not go out of Britain for proof of the 
drying effects of injudicious clearing of forests on the 
land. In our own experience in dealing with wood- 
lands, we have seen, after a large tract of wood had been 
cleared from the hillside, springs which had, while the 
land was covered with trees, yielded a constant supply 
of water, completely dried up ; and there are many who 
can attest this from observation in respect to similar 
cases in their own parts of the country. On the other 
hand, we have frequently been surprised to find, on ex- 
amining woods which had been planted some ten or 
twelve years, all the land under which had been con- 
sidered dry at the time the plantation was made, wet 
spots spreading wider and wider every year, and some 
of them even beginning to throw out runs of water; 
thus proving that under the shade of trees the larger 
portion of the moisture of the land is retained, and 
therefore accumulates in spots according to the nature 
of the subsoil. . . . Plantations in all cases check the 
currents of air passing over a country, and from this 
cause the carrying off of its moisture by drying winds is 
greatly lessened. The shade of trees prevents the rays 
of the sun finding their way to the soil, so that but little 
of the moisture on it can be licked up for the warm cur- 
rents to carry to the upper air. The water sucked up 
from the earth by roots of trees is given off again by the 
twigs and leaves in the form of vapour, — hence the air 
of plantations is always found moister and cooler than it 
is in the open country where the land is destitute of 
trees. Therefore it follows that, while the warm air is 
rising upward from the dry land of the open country, 
the cooled and moister air must fall again to the still 
cooler surface of the woodland; and therefore in the 






EFFECT ON THE RAINFALL, 353 

neighbourhood of masses of plantation there are all the 
conditions secured for the fall of moisture from the air 
in very much greater force than over the open fields. 
When soft winds charged with vapour blow over dry- 
ground heated by the sun, no fall of wet usually takes 
place, but, on the contrary, the clouds that are formed 
sink down into the warm air below, and are soon dis- 
solved and vanish. The dried and warm soil drives the 
rain away, so to speak, It is not so, however, when the 
temperature is softened down by the influence of woods. 
Then the air is loaded with moisture from the constant 
evaporation, and soon becomes overcharged by the fall- 
ing clouds, and so rain follows." 

From a "Manual of Forestry," by Professor W. 
Schlick, we take the following quotation : 

1 ' The results of seven years' observations made at two 
stations near Nancy show a decided increase of rainfall 
in the forest. The stations are situated 1,247 ^ eet above 
the sea, one in the middle of an extensive forest five 
miles to the west of Nancy, the other in an almost 
woodless country six miles to the northeast of Nancy. 
The results were as follows : 

' l Increase of rainfall in forest over that in the open 
on the percentage of the latter : 

February to April 7 per cent. 

May to July 13 " 

August to October 23 " 

November to January . . . .21 " 



Mean of year 16 " 

"That is to say, an increase of 16 per cent, on the 
forest station." 

From page 43 of the same work we quote this valu- 
able result of observation taken over five years : 

"Evaporation. Owing to the lower temperature, 
the greater humidity of the air, and the quieter state of 
the atmosphere, evaporation must be considerably smaller 
in forests than in the open. Direct observations made 
in Bavaria and Prussia show that evaporation in the for- 
est was only two-fifths of that in the open country. The 



354 CEREAL RAISINQ DESTROYS TREES. 

effect of this action is that, of the water which falls on 
the ground in a forest, a considerably larger portion' is 
secured to the soil than in the open. That water is 
available to be taken up by the roots, while any balance 
goes to the ground and helps to feed springs. Of con- 
siderable importance in this respect is the covering of 
forest soil. Dr. Ebenmayer's observations on this point, 
extending over five years, show the following results : 

Parts. 
"Water evaporated from soil in the open . . . .100 
Evaporation from forest soil without leaf -mould . 47 
" with full layer of leaf -mould . . . . 22 

"In other words, forest soil without leaf -mould evap- 
orated less than half the water evaporated in the open, 
while forest soil covered with a good layer of humus 
evaporated even less than one-fourth of that evaporated 
in the open." 

While it is true that the government of the United 
States is offering a large premium for the planting of 
forests in the West, and that by virtue of this stimulus 
some millions of trees are planted annually, a slight ac- 
quaintance with husbandry, and of the laws which are 
operative in guiding the husbandman, clearly shows 
that the cultivation of cereals offers every inducement to 
the farmer to clear the land of trees, and no inducement 
whatever to the planting of more. This is true for the 
simple reason that the farmer feels that he needs to avail 
himself of the use of all his acres; that which is left 
covered with trees is of no use either as pasture or for 
producing corps, and hence, under the present conditions 
of agriculture, is substantially unproductive. While the 
farmer may be aware in a general way that forests are a 
valuable safeguard against storms, and exert a beneficial 
influence upon the rainfall, he sees also that the few 
wooded acres which he owns are not a source of profit to 
him ; and, being driven by the exigencies of his situa- 
tion, he feels obliged to make every acre productive. 
The result of the working of this law is seen throughout 



RESULTS FOLLOWING FRUIT RAISING. 355 

the Middle and Eastern States of America, which have 
gradually but uninterruptedly during recent years been 
largely denuded of their forests. The philosopher whose 
attention is called to this subject must see that the nature 
of cereal agriculture inevitably brings about this result. 

On the other hand, what a different result must fol- 
low as soon as the importance of fruits and nuts is 
known, and these articles of food become a considerable 
product of husbandry. There is no such potent influ- 
ence as pecuniary gain. Whereas under cereal agricul- 
ture there is a constant temptation to the farmer to cut 
down his forest to make his lands available for grain - 
growing, as soon as a market for fruits and nuts is estab- 
lished the same law of pecuniary gain will induce him 
to transform his pastures and his grain fields into 
orchards and nut groves. While the individual act of 
each farmer has no appreciable effect upon the climate 
or the rainfall, the sum total of these denudations is seen 
in the damaging change of the climate of the Middle 
and Eastern States ; just so, while a few isolated planta- 
tions of orchards have no appreciable influence, as soon 
as large numbers of farmers re-establish plantations of 
trees, a beneficent restoration will follow. 

In America destructive cyclones and tornadoes are 
manifestly on the increase. Residents of Great Britain 
can have but small appreciation of the terrible ravages 
wrought by these forces of nature, and of the sufferings 
of the inhabitants of the great plains, not only from the 
cyclones themselves, but from the perpetual dread of 
them. If orchards of fruit trees and groves of nut trees 
dotted the plains of that region now under cultivation, 
they would not only afford protection against wind cur- 
rents, but by the equalization of temperature would do 
away with the causes which now produce these scourges. 



Since the foregoing chapter was written, the follow- 



356 TREES INCREASE AVAILABLE FERTILITY. 

ing note has been received from Mr. W. A. Macdonald, 
author of ' * Humanitism : the Scientific Solution of the 
Social Problem" (Trubner & Co., London), a lucid and 
scholarly book full of original and suggestive thought : 

' ' The effect of trees on temperature is to make it 
cooler in summer and warmer in winter. The rainfall 
is more evenly distributed over the seasons and regions, 
and storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes are less frequent 
and less violent. 

* ' Fertility can be drawn from greater depths by trees 
than by cereals, so that this is equivalent to a larger 
surface area, and no artificial drainage is necessary. The 
roots of trees attack more insoluble compounds in the 
soil than do herbs, grains, etc. , and fertilizers are usually 
not necessary except where only a few of the elements 
of fertility are present in abundance, such as on calca- 
reous and humous soil, and the like. On the other hand, 
several years are lost before the trees come to bear fruits, 
which fact is in favour of cereals." 

The foregoing testimony from a writer well versed 
in scientific agriculture presents new and further reasons 
for the superiority of fruits and nuts over cereals. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
IN LINE WITH PROGRESS. 

It scarcely requires argument to convince anyone 
that a diet of fruit requires less seasoning, less cooking, 
less labour in preparation than a diet of cereals and 
vegetables. To begin with, when fruit can be procured 
in its best state, cooking is an offense — witness the 
almost universal custom of mankind. On the other 
hand, cereals and vegetables before being rendered 
either palatable or possible as a means of sustenance 
must be thoroughly cooked. Witness again the univer- 
sal custom of mankind. 

It is not enough that these cereal foods must be 
cooked; they require seasoning also before they com- 
mend themselves to man's appetite. The addition of 
salt to bread, cereals, and vegetables is as general as 
the use of these foods. But this is not all. While salt 
is required to whet the appetite, and to get these pro- 
ducts in a condition to be attractive, this simple season- 
ing does not suffice. There must be milk or butter or 
cheese or eggs or flesh before these foods are deemed 
entirely satisfactory. And as civilization advances on 
its present lines of complexity, more and more season- 
ings and elaborate compounds are added to these cereals 
and vegetables, until in our modern cuisine, and in (as 
is thought) well-ordered establishments, a chef must be 
provided whose sole claim for employment is his ability 
to concoct and work up highly complex and cunningly 



358 MANIFOLD DRAWBACKS TO CERE4LS. 

seasoned dishes and sauces, the basis of which is almost 
entirely cereals and starch vegetables. 

All these manipulations and methods of cooking con- 
stitute but one branch of the unnatural and unnecessary 
labor involved in the preparation of these foods. Un- 
like nuts and fruits,, plantations of which stand for gen- 
erations, and in favorable localities yearly producing 
large quantities of food with the minimum amount of at- 
tention and fertilization, the cereals must be sown yearly. 
Both before and after the crop has been raised, the land 
must undergo laborious cultivation. Then there is the 
harvesting and the threshing, to be followed by milling 
and dressing, all of which processes precede the complex 
cooking, seasoning, and concocting above referred to. 
The production of these foods, and the necessary prep- 
aration which they involve, monopolize a large propor- 
tion of the industries of the race. In agriculture we 
have the labor in the production of the grain ; modern 
milling is a most elaborate profession by itself ; baking 
is another; and the manufacturing and distributing of 
the necessary machines and tools for carrying on these 
various trades constitute many others. 

Every philanthropist is longing for the day to dawn 
when men will be able to do the work of the world in 
a few hours. Fourier, one of the greatest of modern 
economists, pointed out that it does not matter so much 
what kind of labour a man is engaged in when he is 
freed from the drudgery of long hours. Fourier wrote 
only some sixty years ago, and in his day it was common 
for the labouring classes to be held to a daily task of 
fourteen, sixteen, and even eighteen hours. Already 
in England the working day is reduced to nine and a 
half hours, and there is every probability that it will 
soon be reduced to eight. No doubt exists in reason- 
able minds that eight hours are excessive, indeed 
constitute drudgery. Fourier asserted that the natu- 



FOURIER ON HOURS OF LABOUR. 359 

ral term for daily labour is from three to four hours. 
It is certain that these hours are entirely adequate 
to give man and woman all the physical exercise that 
the best health demands. The mind is lost in a de- 
lightful maze of speculation and meditation upon the 
great benefits that must ultimately accrue to the well- 
cultured labouring classes when they are called upon 
to labour only four hours per day, and when the re- 
maining portion of their time may be devoted to rest, 
recreation, study, and social intercourse. If the diet ad- 
vised in this work he adopted, the food of the human 
family can be produced, distributed, and prepared with 
only a very small fraction of the labour necessarily in- 
volved in a diet based on cereals ; and thus the substi- 
tution of this system for the present diet of civilization 
would in itself be an important factor in shortening the 
hours of labour, and, by increasing the facilities for the 
education of the masses, aid largely in clearing the way 
for a greatly improved civilization. Hence it is easy 
to see that the theory that the fruit is the natural food 
of man is in the line of human progress. 



CHAPTER XV. 
THE UNIVERSAL REIGN OF LAW. 

Scientists who have given attention to the food ques- 
tion have long urged the importance of a diet largely 
nitrogenous. It is easily discerned that there is a clearly 
defined universality of law in nature; the Darwinian 
theory, or the theory of evolution, which has in less 
than half a century revolutionized modern thought, is 
based upon a conception of this reign of law. The law 
of gravitation applies to all bodies irrespective of their 
constituent elements. The laws of physiology are quite 
as uniform, and writers thereon never tire of illustrating 
the physiology of human digestion by experimenting 
wtih the digestion of animals. If an examination is 
made into the character of food stuffs used by the various 
species of the animal kingdom, it will be observed how 
clearly the claim of scientists that our food ought to be 
largely nitrogenous is substantiated. The carnivora sub- 
sist on food mainly nitrogenous, except the small amount 
of oil and salts found in the living flesh. The fishes of 
the sea are chiefly carnivora, subsisting upon the flesh of 
each other. In the "Transactions of the Agricultural 
Society of Scotland " an analysis of the food elements of 
grass is given by Dr. Wilson ; and it will be seen that 
the herbivora have in the grass of the field a food 
largely nitrogenous. 



GRAIN NOT THE NATURAL FOOD OF CATTLE. 361 
Composition of Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass. 

Cut June 1887. Cut Oct. 1887 

Water 66.55 7°-99 

Digestible albuminoids 1.63 2.40 

Indigestible " 88 .78 

Non-albuminoid nitrogenous compounds .48 1.03 

Fat, wax, and chlorophyl 82 .88 

Extractive matter (nitrogen free) ... 17.05 14.49 

Ash 2.42 3.20 

Woody fiber 10.17 6.23 

100.00 100.00 

It has been generally accepted, though wrongfully, 
that grain is the natural food of cattle ; the above table 
shows that grass, which is unquestionably the true 
natural food of horses, sheep and cattle, has no starch, 
and its food elements undergo a very different digestion 
from that of cereals. Moreover, where such animals 
are kept, the grass is almost entirely prevented from seed- 
ing by their pasturage, and hence they naturally get very 
little grain. 

The gnawing animals, such as mice, squirrels, etc., 
which have been given a classification by themselves 
under the name of rodentia, feed chiefly on nuts and 
oily and nitrogenous seeds; and when these animals 
have access to grain they often eat only the chit or germ, 
leaving the starchy and chief portion untouched. 

While it is commonly supposed that certain species 
of animals are called granivora, there are no such ani- 
mals. The word graminivora means grass-eating, and is 
but another word for herbivora. 

The only animals that may be truly said to be grain- 
eating are birds. Many species of birds eat a consider- 
able portion of grass seeds (and all cereals are developed 
from grass) ; but while most birds eat freely of insects 
and worms, there are none that do not use any of such 
animal substances. The following extract is taken from a 
work on birds by H. Stephens, F.R.S. (Vol. V., p. no): 



362 CEREALS NATURAL ONLY TO BIRDS. 

1 ' Now, however, it is known beyond doubt that most 
birds feed their young- on animal, and not on vegetable 
food. Birds are neither entirely insectivorous, nor en- 
tirely granivorous. They generally feed their young on 
insects and molluscs, while feeding themselves on fruits 
and seeds." 

Since, however, starchy seeds are naturally wide- 
spread over the earth, it would be strange if no animal 
were found whose organs are adapted by nature to utilize 
them as food ; and it is quite in keeping with the uni- 
versal harmony of nature that there are a multitude of 
animals for which starchy seeds are a natural food. 
And here is found the provision of nature that confirms, 
in the most pointed manner, our contention : birds are 
the only animals for which starchy seeds are the natural 
food, and birds have altogether a different digestive apparatus 
from other animals. They are provided with a gizzard, 
an organ unlike any found in the digestive organs of 
other animals. The following extract is taken from the 
Hartford Journal', and may serve to answer that oft- 
repeated inquiry as to what the grains are sent for : 

" Before the food is prepared for digestion, there- 
fore, the grains must be subjected to a triturating pro- 
cess, and such as are not sufficiently bruised in this 
manner, before passing into the gizzard, are then reduced 
to the proper state by its natural action. The action of 
the gizzard is in this respect mechanical, this organ 
serving as a mill to grind the feed to pieces, and then, 
by means of its powerful muscles, pressing it gradually 
into the intestines, in the form of a pulp. The power of 
this organ is said to be sufficient to pulverize hollow glo- 
bules of glass in a very short time, and solid masses of 
the same substance in a few weeks. The rapidity of 
this process seems to be proportionate generally to the 
size of the bird. A chicken, for example, breaks up 
such substances as are received into its stomach less 
rapidly than the capon, while a goose performs the same 
operation sooner than either. Needles and even lancets 



MAN NOT AN EXCEPTION 363 

given to turkeys have been broken in pieces and voided 
without any apparent injury to the stomach. The rea- 
son undoubtedly is that the larger species of birds have 
thicker and more powerful organs of digestion." 

When all these facts are carefully considered, there 
can be no doubt that birds are the only animals for 
which grains are the natural food, and for this reason 
birds are provided by nature with a totally different 
digestive apparatus from that possessed by any other 
animal ; and furthermore, the only other animals living 
principally on starch foods are man and those animals 
under his control. 

When we consider the universality of the reign of 
law, and the fact that man and the animals which he 
has controlled are the only ones which are habitually 
out of health ; that man in a state of nature must have 
excluded cereals and starch foods from his dietary ; and 
that the herbivora, the graminivora, the omnivora, the 
fishes, and many birds live on a diet in which cereals 
and starchy foods constitute only an insignificant por- 
tion — when all these facts are considered, is there any 
reasonable ground for considering that nature made an 
exception in the case of the single animal, man ? Is it 
not more reasonable to believe, since man in a state of 
nature did not have cereal foods, and since all the other 
species of the animal kingdom subsist on food largely 
nitrogenous, that man in substituting cereals for his 
sweet fruits has departed from the order and intent of 
nature, and in so doing has brought upon himself the 
inevitable penalty of broken-down organs, and laid the 
foundation of modern diseases? 



CHAPTER XVI. 
LONGEVITY OP MAN. 

When an author finds himself in the position of 
advocating new and startling truths there is rnuch satis- 
faction in having his position confirmed by men eminent 
in their profession, and against whom there is not the 
faintest suspicion of radicalism. The one main under- 
lying thought of this work is that it is natural to be 
well ; that all conditions of illness are the result of the 
transgression of physiologic law, and because of these 
transgressions the average life of man has been reduced 
nearly fourfold. In confirmation of this view we have 
quoted from Rowbotham and De Lacy Evans; and 
we are pleased to confirm these authorities by quoting 
from one no less striking, the eminent and orthodox 
modern physician Sir James Crichton Browne, M.D., 
LL.D., F.R.S., whose address on "Old Age" was pub- 
lished in the British Medical Journal of October 3d, 1891. 

The impression is widespread that owing to science 
and modern enlightenment the longevity of man is being 
extended. The foundation for this misapprehension 
lies in the fact that in consequence of the better sanita- 
tion of cities we do not have in the present day those 
plagues that once carried off their victims by thousands ; 
and, moreover, from improved sanitation in the dwell- 
ings and streets of the poorer classes, the rate of infant 
mortality has been greatly lessened ; so that the general 
average life of human beings has been lengthened. Sir 



WHAT DISEASES ARE INCREASING. 365 

James, however, clearly shows in his address that human 
life is being slowly shortened, and that at the ages from 
sixty-five to seventy-five there has been an increase in 
the death rate. 

Among the diseases that are more virulent and fre- 
quent than formerly, and from which the mortality of 
adult persons is on the increase, Sir James points out 
cancer, heart disease, and affections of the kidneys and 
nervous system. Those who have carefully read the 
ground taken by Mr. Rowbotham and Dr. Evans are in 
possession of a satisfactory explanation of why heart 
disease should be on the increase, since the diet of 
modern civilization is shown to be especially favourable 
for the degeneration of the arteries and the lessening of 
their capacity, which condition is most certainly a prime 
factor in lessening longevity. 

As for nervous diseases, if the contention put for- 
ward in this book — that the thorough digestion of all 
starch foods imposes an unnecessary strain upon the vital 
powers and upon the nervous system — be well founded, 
it presents an explanation of why nervous diseases should 
be on the increase, without resorting to the supposition 
that the work and worry of modern life involve more 
strain than the life of a century ago. 

Sir James well points out that, while it is true that 
old age is being steadily shortened, we are being plunged 
into old age earlier in life ; and that deaths attributed 
to old age are now reported at ages from forty-five 
to fifty-five, and in large numbers between fifty-five and 
sixty. If it be true that many are dying of old age at 
fifty instead of at seventy years, is it more difficult to 
believe that the natural old age of 120 or even of 100 
years has during long ages been reduced to three score 
and ten, than that, as we have the best of authority 
for believing, it has been reduced in many cases from 
seventy years to fifty, in a few generations? 



366 WISDOM COMES WITH ADVANCED AGE. 

Especial attention is called to Sir James' remarks on 
insanity. Mental diseases are the direct result of an im- 
pairment of the nervous system ; and if it be true that 
the digestion of starch foods is an unnecessary strain 
upon the nervous and vital force, we are in possession 
of an adequate and satisfactory reason why there is a 
great increase in insanity and suicide. 

Sir James points out with great force that while old 
age at the present time is usually complicated with gout 
and rheumatism, and various morbid conditions, that 
they are not necessarily the result of old age, but that 
they arise from causes operative long before old age 
supervenes (viz. , transgressions of physiologic law), and 
that ' ' old age may run its course to the century goal 
without being complicated by any of these senile mala- 
dies, or crippled by any of the senile infirmities enu- 
merated." Sir James says that ''while old age as we 
actually know it is for most part ' wedded to calamity ' 
and dowered with weakness," it is nevertheless possible 
to have ' ' old age free from all this — a simple retrogres- 
sion, a long-drawn-out euthanasia." 

Perhaps the most startling statement in this address 
is that ' ' the organism from which flow reason and judg- 
ment comes to its perfection late in life, in all likelihood 
between the fifty-fifth and sixty-fifth years, and may be 
exercised justly till an advanced age." If the chief con- 
tentions of this work be for a moment taken as proven, 
and if the infirmities and diseases of modern life are 
chiefly the result of easily avoidable errors in diet, what 
a vista opens before the philosophic mind when this fact 
that the organs of wisdom and judgment are developed 
late in life is made known. What an infinite loss to the 
race that most of its best men and women are either cut 
off before these organs are fully developed, or they are 
prematurely made imbecile by infirmity, and are not 
able to manifest their latent and maturer natural powers. 



GREAT LONGEVITY NATURAL, SAYS SCIENCE. 367 

It is the opinion of Sir James that one hundred years 
may be taken as the natural limit of human life. He 
says that the formula of Flourens — that the duration of 
any animal's life may be found by multiplying by five 
the number of years occupied in the union of the epiphy- 
ses of its long bones with their shafts — is not universally 
applicable; that it fails in the case of man, as this 
epiphyses is not complete until his twenty-fifth year; 
and as this rule would make the natural longevity of the 
race 125 years, Sir James affirms that it is a mistake. 
He quotes Buff on, however, that the duration of life is 
six or seven times that of growth ; and since man 
reaches his physical maturity or growth at about the age 
of twenty, if this period be multiplied by six and a 
fraction over, we arrive at the same result as that ar- 
rived at by the formula of Flourens. Since these form- 
ulas are found to be generally correct with regard to ani- 
mals below man, and since it is incontestable that the 
health of man in civilization is far below that of the 
animals in nature, is it not reasonable to conclude that 
these formulas of Buffon and Flourens are as correct 
with regard to man as they are with regard to the lower 
animals ? 

The picture that springs to everyone's mind on the 
mention of old age is an aggregation of infirmities. 
This address analyzes these supposed characteristics in 
detail, and shows that although the body is usually bent 
in old age, extremely old men are found of an erect and 
martial carriage ; that, although the skin is usually dry 
and wrinkled, there are many cases in which it con- 
tinues smooth and soft in octogenarians ; that the teeth 
usually fall out in old age, but instances occur in which 
they remain sound in their sockets to the last ; although 
sight and hearing are generally impaired, now and then 
men and women of great age present themselves in 
whom these senses retain their pristine acuteness ; mem- 



3& LONGEVITY NOT NOW INCREASING. . 

ory usually fails, but it is often vigorous and trust- 
worthy when old age has reached its utmost limit. 

The following are the quotations from the address of 
Sir J. Crichton Browne above referred to : 

' ' It is of old age that I would speak to you, and the 
subject, although at a first glance it may seem of little 
immediate concern to you, still in the heyday of your 
youth, is yet well deserving of your thoughtful considera- 
tion, for it ought to be one of your great aims in life to 
grow old. yourselves, and to be the cause of old age in 
others. 

' ' Now, the popular impression assuredly is that it is 
well with old age in these days. Paragraphs which 
appear in the newspapers now and again, pointing out 
that a dozen old people whose deaths are recorded in the 
Times on some particular day have collectively beaten 
the record of Methuselah, and the striking decline in the 
death-rate of England and Wales which has been going 
on for the last thirty years, has created a belief, fostered 
by those genial optimists whom we have always with us, 
that we are advancing toward health and longevity all 
along the line: Well, the reduction in the death-rate in 
this country is an undisputable and gratifying fact. The 
new census returns indicate that that reduction has not 
been quite as great as our calculations founded on esti- 
mated population had led us to hope, but still it has been 
large and remarkable. The improved drainage of land 
and construction of houses, the enforcement of vaccina- 
tion, the vastly increased attention bestowed on cleanli- 
ness (personal, domestic, and civic), and on all sanitary 
requirements, and the accumulated wealth of the nation, 
leading to a higher standard of living, have resulted in 
an enormous saving of life ; but I must call upon you to 
note what is often overlooked, that this saving of life has 
been effected mainly in its first half. It is among in- 
fants, children, and young persons that the large 
reduction in the death-rate has taken place, while 
among persons past middle age the reduction in that rate 
has been comparatively trifling. I am n»i. going to 
worry you with statistical tables which I have prepared, 



LONGEVITY INCONTESTABLY DECREASING. 369 

but I may tell you generally that since the year 1 8 59 the 
decline in the death-rate has been 17.6 per cent, at all 
ages under 5 5 , and only 2 . 7 per cent, at all ages above 
55. The principal decline has taken place at ages under 
35 ; after 45 the decline is insignificant, and from 65 to 
75 there has actually been an increase in the death-rate. 

"It is incontestable that old age is being slowly 
shortened, and that the present increased mortality at' 
higher ages cannot be explained by diminished mortal- 
ity at lower ones, even supposing increased delicacy in 
those who survive. It is not satisfactory to find in our 
population an enormous increase of babies, children, and 
callow young men and women, without any proportionate 
increase in the number of ripe and experienced speci- 
mens of our race, of goodly matrons and tried veterans. 

' ' But matrons and veterans — ripe and experienced 
specimens of our race — have participated with the young 
and immature in the benefits of those improved sanitary 
and social conditions to which the reduction in the death- 
rate has been ascribed. Fever, small-pox, and phthisis 
have been less fatal to the aged of late years than they 
formerly were ; and if the death-rate due to them has 
diminished while the general death-rate has risen, it is 
clear that the mortality from some other diseases must 
have increased to an extent to compensate for the di- 
minution thus caused, as well as to account for any in- 
crease in the general death-rate. 

' ' What, then, are the diseases which have become 
more prevalent and fatal of late years, and in consequence 
of the increased fatality of which fewer persons in this 
country can expect to reach old age ? A detailed answer 
to that question would involve long explanations and 
abstruse figures, but my present purpose will be served 
by naming to you three or four of the diseases, or groups 
of diseases, the mortality from which is largely on the 
increase. Cancer carried off 35,654 persons in England 
and Wales in the five years from ]^sJ^jM^ hut it 
destroyed no fewer than 8 1 ,620 in the five years from 1 884 
to 1888, the ratio of deaths from it being 354 per million 
living in the former period, and 585 per million in the 
latter, and seven-eighths of the victims of malignant can- 



3;o STILL MORE UNSATISFACTORY REFLECTIONS. 

cer are above 45 years of age. Heart diseases carried 
off 92,181 persons in the five years 1859 t° I ^3y but 
they destroyed 224, 102 persons in the five years 1884 to 
1888, the ratio of deaths to each one million living being 
915 in the former quinquennium and 1,606 in the latter, 
and the heavy mortality from these diseases falls after 
35 years of age. Nervous disease carried off 196,906 in 
the five years 1864 to 1868, but they destroyed 260,558 
persons in the five years 1884 to 1888, the ratio of deaths 
to each one million living being 1,585 in the former 
quinquennium and 1,793 in the latter, and the increased 
mortality from these diseases comes after 35. Kidney 
diseases carried off 23, 176 in the five years 1859 to J 863, 
but they destroyed 61,371 persons in the five years 1884 
to 1888, the ratio of deaths to each one million living 
being 230 in the former and 445 in the latter quinquen- 
nium, and these diseases are most fatal in middle and 
advanced life. 

1 ' But still more unsatisfactory reflections in connec- 
tion with old age remain behind, for it would seem that 
if that stage of life is being shortened at one end, the 
end at which we should gladly see it extended, it is being 
lengthened at the other end, the end at which we should 
gladly see abbreviated. While increasing mortality 
from degenerative diseases diminishes our prospects of 
enjoying a ripe old age, the increasing prevalence of 
minor degenerative changes enhances the probability 
that we shall be plunged into a premature old age, and 
become decrepit while still in what used to be considered 
the prime of life. Men and women are growing old 
before their time. Old age is encroaching on the strength 
of manhood, and the infirmities associated with it are 
stealthily taking possession of the system some years 
earlier than they were wont to do in former generations. 
Deaths due simply to old age are now reported between 
45 and 55 years of age, and in large numbers between 
5 5 and 60, and there has been a reduction in the age at 
which atrophy and debility — another name for second 
childishness — kill those who have passed middle life. 

" Senile insanity due to atrophy of the brain, or 
exaggerated dotage, is, I feel sure, far more common 



INSANITY AND SUICIDE INCREASING. 371 

than it once was, and declares itself on the average at an 
earlier age than it used to do; and I know few more 
gloomy experiences than to visit our mammoth metro- 
politan asylums, and wandering among the masses of 
human wreckage there heaped up, to notice the'riumber 
of prematurely old men and women. And senile mel- 
ancholia, which is sometimes the precursor of dementia, 
but which often stops short of it, is in a more marked 
degree spreading among us, and including in its vic- 
tims an increasing number of those who are not really 
senile as years are counted. Suicides are increasing at 
all ages ; they rose in England and Wales from 1, 340 in 
1864 to 2,308 in 1888, and from a ratio of 64 to one of 81 
to a million living; but it is after 45 years of age that 
the vast majority of them occur, and it is between 45 and 
65 that they are increasing most rapidly. And it is to 
be remembered that each case of suicide represents a 
large number of cases of melancholia so pronounced as 
to be certificable, and an exceedingly large number com- 
paratively mild, of which we have no official cognizance. 
My belief is that mild senile melancholia — a state of 
mental depression falling short of madness, but still 
morbid enough — occurring at the turning-point of life 
or soon after it, is a lamentably common complaint, 
often concealed, but sometimes accidently discovered, 
and revealed far more frequently to the practitioner than 
specialist. Scores of men around us, showing their first 
grey hairs, who in business and social intercourse wear 
a smiling countenance, are tormented in private, during 
the silent watches of the night or at the garish dawn, by 
a despondency that they can scarcely explain, or that 
centers in fears they know to be groundless, but that 
embitters existence, and sometimes renders it almost 
unbearable. . . . 

' ' The fact that what we habitually regard as the in- 
firmities and maladies of old age are not essential to it, 
you will the more easily realize if you look at them singly 
and in detail, instead of in groups, as we generally meet 
with them and think of them ; for then it will become 
apparent to you that there is scarcely one of them that 
is invariably present in old age. As a rule, the body 



372 OLD AGE FREE FROM DECREPITUDE. 

becomes bent in old age; but we frequently meet ex- 
tremely old men of an erect and martial carriage. As a 
rule, the skin becomes dry and wrinkled in old age, but 
there are many cases in which it continues smooth and 
soft in octogenarians, even without the assistance of any 
patent soap. As a rule, the teeth fall out in old age, but 
instances occur in which they remain sound in their 
sockets after the average span of life has been exceeded. 
As a rule, sight and hearing are impaired in old age, 
but now and then venerable men and women present 
themselves in whom these senses retain their pristine 
acuteness. As a rule, memory fails in old age, but not 
rarely it remains vigorous and trustworthy when senility 
has reached its utmost limit. And if we turn from the 
common physiological modifications observed during old 
age to the pathological manifestations which are most 
often associated with it and peculiar to it, occurring at 
no other era of life, we perceive even more clearly that 
these are not of its essence, but accidental accompani- 
ments, attributable not to senile involution, but to degen- 
erative influences of various kinds. Senile osteomalacia, 
senile gangrene, senile gout and rheumatism, senile 
atheroma, senile softening of the brain, and many other 
senile morbid conditions, although they occur only in the 
aged, affect but a very limited proportion of them, arise 
from causes operative long before old age supervened, 
and must not be confounded with old age itself. Old 
age may run its course to the century goal without being 
complicated by any of these senile maladies or crippled 
by any of the senile infirmities enumerated; and to 
think of it thus stripped of adventitious misfortunes is 
to recognize it as a less formidable and deplorable phase 
of existence than we have been accustomed to suppose 
it to be. Of course, old age as we actually know it, as 
it abounds around us, is for the most part ' wedded to 
calamity ' and dowered with weakness ; but my object is 
to convince you of the possibility of a typical old age free 
from all these — a long-drawn-out euthanasia, a simple 
retrogression, the nature of which I shall presently more 
fully define. 

' ' It is in the nervous system that the most instruct- 



DEVELOPMENTS LATE IN LIFE. 373 

ive illustrations of late and long- sustained evolutions are 
to be observed. . . . 

' ' There is one group of very highly integrated 
psychomotor centers situated in the ascending frontal 
and ascending parietal gyri, in which are represented 
the movements of the thumb, fingers, wrist, elbow, and 
shoulder — the movements, in short, of the hand and arm. 
The evolution of these centers, which commences soon 
after birth, proceeds actively and visibly during child- 
hood, more deliberately during youth, and I presume we 
should most of us say that it is complete about the nine- 
teenth or twentieth year, when the maximum of stature 
is arrived at, for at that time the upper limb seems to 
have attained its full range of strength and precision of 
movement. But that is not the case. There is evidence 
that the hand and arm centers go on evolving till a much 
later age. It is obvious that great painters and artists 
of all sorts advance in manual detexterity, in exactness 
of execution, in everything that goes to make up mas- 
terly handling, till middle life or beyond it. . . . 

" When subjected to no unreasonable treatment, but 
well and wisely used, the hand and arm centres retain 
their cunning in its highest degree long beyond the 
forty- fifth year, and although some failure in their 
power is among the inevitable consequences of advanc- 
ing years, that failure need never be extreme. In rare 
instances the hand has kept its full potency at a ripe old 
age. Michael Angelo was drawing superb designs for 
St. Peter's at Rome shortly before his death in his 
eighty-ninth year, and I know examples now of men 
over seventy whose handwriting is as good as it was at 
forty, and who, after testing themselves, assure me that 
they write with as much facility and rapidity as they 
then did. 

' ' But there are other centers in the brain evolved later 
than those for the hand and arm which longer than they 
remain fully competent to the performance of their duty. 
The emissive speech centers in the brain, the motor cen- 
ters for the lips, tongue, mouth, or organs of speech, 
which are situated in the third frontal convolution, 
and perhaps in the island of Reil, on the anterior edge of 



374 LITERARY POWER IN MIDDLE LIFE. 

the motor area, are slower than those for the hand and 
arm in growing to adult strength and skill. The infant 
and child laboriously learn to articulate, and throughout 
youth and early manhood the acquisition of language 
goes tardily on. I cannot pause to explain the mechan- 
ism of speech or distinguish between the parts played in 
its production by the auditory and motor centers and 
the higher center in which concepts are elaborated ; but 
taking volitional language as a whole, I would point out 
that the command over it is greatest between 45 and 5 5 
years of age. I do not mean to convey that men and 
women are most talkative then, but I maintain that, as a 
rule, it is then that they use the greatest number of 
words to express their ideas, and employ them with the 
most precision and propriety. . . . 

" With respect to written language, the evidence that 
its choicest evolution comes in what is called middle life 
is, I think, cogent and conclusive. Literary genius has 
often blossomed early and withered too soon to allow us 
to judge of the best bloom of which it was capable ; but 
whenever literary men have lived to middle life or beyond 
it, a progressive expertness in their use of the verbal in- 
struments of thought is discernible in their writings. I 
must not weary you with illustrations, but let me just re- 
call to you that ' Paradise Lost ' a poem which, if it pos- 
sessed no other merit, would be for ever remarkable for 
its wealth of words, was completed when Milton was 57, 
having been written in the five previous years ; that the 
translation of Virgil — 'noble and spirited/ as Pope calls 
it, and 'Alexander's Feast,' of which Hallam has said, 
' Everyone places it among the first of its class, and 
many allow it no rival,' were written when Dryden was 
66, and that ' The Lives of the Poets, ' Johnson's greatest 
work, was composed when he was 72 years old. 

"In front of the speech center, in the brain, there are 
large masses of cerebral substance — the frontal lobes that 
yield no response to electrical stimulation. These lobes, 
which are rudimentary in the different orders of animals, 
reach their highest development in man, and in different 
races of mankind and different individuals of the same 
race are always best developed in those that have the 



WISDOM DEVELOPED LATE IN LIFE. 375 

highest intellectual powers. Destruction of these lobes, 
experimentally in monkeys and by disease in man, is 
followed by loss of faculty of the attention, marked intel- 
lectual deficiency, and instability of character, and it is no 
longer doubtful that in these lobes are situated the sub- 
strata of the psychical processes that lie at the founda- 
tion of the higher intellectual operations. In them are 
a series of centers subserving the highest human powers, 
evolved later than the speech centers, and probably 
longer than the speech centers retaining their functional 
vigour. An analysis of the powers here located is of 
course impossible on this occasion, but it will be suffic- 
ient for my present purpose to tell you that judgment 
and reason are certainly dependent on the integrity of 
these centers. Now, judgment and reason, I would sug- 
gest, come to their perfection later than speech — in all 
likelihood between the fifty-fifth and sixty-fifth years, 
and may be exercised justly till an advanced age. Wis- 
dom does not always come with years. Heine made his 
good Pole say, ' Ah ! that was long, long ago ; then I 
was young and foolish, now I am old and foolish ; ' but 
still the counsels of grey beards, free from the ardent 
passions of youth, and well stored with experience, have 
been valued in all stages of the world's history, and it 
would be easy to show that a preponderance of the works 
pre-eminently implying the use of calm and powerful 
reason must be ascribed to men over fifty-five. Bacon 
was fifty-nine when he produced the first two books of 
the ' Novum Organon ; ' Kant was fifty-seven when the 
1 Critique of Pure Reason ' appeared ; Harvey was sev- 
enty-three when his great work on ' Generation ' was 
given to the world ; Darwin was fifty when his ' Origin 
of Species' was issued, fifty-nine when his 'Variation 
of Plants and Animals under Domestication ' was pub- 
lished, and sixty-two when his 'Descent of Man' ap- 
peared. In almost all nations the decision on the most 
momentous affairs of state has been reserved for a 
senate ; and it is highly noteworthy that our system of 
jurisprudence in this country — a fabric of which we are 
justly proud — has been built up by judges from fifty-five 
to eighty-five years of age. The late Dr. W. B. Carpen- 



376 SERENE OLD AGE A DIVINE TRIUMPH. 

ter said to me when nearly seventy years old : ' I am 
conscious of the decline of life. My perceptions are a 
little dull, and my memory has lost its grasp. I could 
not now trust to its safe keeping long strings of words 
as I did when learning my Latin grammar as a boy, but 
I am convinced that my judgment is clearer and juster 
than it ever was, and my feelings are not blunted.' 

1 ' But besides judgment and reason there are other 
powers of mind in all likelihood localized in the frontal 
lobes. The moral sense and religious emotions have 
probably here the sub-strata necessary for their manifes- 
tation, and these, although influential in some degree 
throughout life, evolve most munificently last of all. 
The fruit is mellowest when it is ready to fall, and the 
old man free from canker or blight sometimes displays 
new sweetness and magnanimity when his course is all 
but run. . . . 

' ' The imitation of Shakespeare would not be an 
adequate or feasible ideal to place before mankind in 
these days ; but no better pattern of the temper, spirit, 
and piety that ought to preside in life's closing scenes 
can possibly be presented than that set up in the roman- 
tic comedies of the fourth period. We toil and moil 
through four- fifths of life with our eyes fixed on the 
last act — a short span of gilded dotage, an almshouse, a 
pension, or a peerage. Would it not be wiser to hold in 
view a crowning evolution of our qualities, a choice 
abstract of our experiences, a sublime crisis in which, 
although natural force is abated and the physical powers 
flag, the moral nature, disentangling itself from selfish 
ties and the thraldom of passion, rises to serene heights 
of virtue, where love drives out fear, and faith, strength- 
ened by suffering, reigns supreme over all ? 

" And such an old age is not an idle dream. Cicero 
looked at old age from the standpoint of self-assertion 
rather than from that of self-sacrifice. His ideal old 
man was an august Roman patrician, crowned with the 
laurels of the victor, powerful in the counsels of the 
state, stern and rigorous, still capable of new acquire- 
ments, like Cato the Censor, at 84. But even Cicero has 
left us softer pictures of the epoch — as in that of Appius, 



CATO AND CICERO. 377 

old and blind, but revered and beloved, and animated 
by the fervour of youth — and has described it as a time 
that may be easy and delightful, in which, after a long 
voyage, sight of land is obtained, and the heart dis- 
charges itself of petty rancour. We, with our horizon 
wider than that of Cicero, are able to see in old age, 
even in humble life, blessings and alleviations that were 
beyond his ken, and obtain at least glimpses of the 
truth that its chief glory consists, not in the remem- 
brance of feats of prowess or in the egotistic exercise of 
power, but in the conquest of peevish weakness, in the 
brightness of hope, and in the dissemination of happi- 
ness around. Depend upon it, the best antiseptic 
against senile decay is an active interest in human 
affairs, and that those keep young longest who love 
most. 

"I have hinted to you, ladies and gentlemen — for 
in the time at my disposal I can scarcely more than 
hint — that in the higher nervous centers evolution goes 
on late in life, and that even in what is called old age 
the freshness of youth may sometimes survive. And I 
have hinted also that the natural evolution of the nerve 
centers is largely inferfered with by our habits of life and 
methods of work ; and that retrogression is prematurely 
induced, and old age abbreviated and so loaded with 
infirmities that it is regarded with apprehension instead 
of with quietude and contentment. And if you ask me 
now to what extent retrogression is hastened and old 
age abbreviated, I must tell you that I think it a good 
working hypothesis that the natural life of man is ioo, 
and that in so far as it falls short of that it is ' curtailed 
of fair proportion.' . . . 

" Flourens' neat and portable formula that the dura- 
tion of any animal's life may be calculated by multiply- 
ing by five the number of years occupied in the union 
of the epiphyses of its long bones with their shafts is 
not applicable in every case ; it fails, indeed, in the case 
of man, in whom the coalescence of the epiphyses is not 
complete until his twenty-fifth year; but, nevertheless, 
Flourens' conclusion that man is entitled to a century 
of existence was, it must be maintained, substantially 



378 FORMULA OF FLO U REN S AND BUFFON. 

correct. Buffon thought that the duration of life was 
six or seven times that of growth, and in this he was in 
error, for it is probably about five times; but he did 
good service in insisting on the truth that as each ani- 
mal has its definite form, its limit of size, and its fixed 
period of gestation and of growth, so each has its fixed 
period of life, which depends neither on food, climate, 
or variety, but on the constitution of the organism. 
According to Buffon's view, each animal is projected 
into life with an impetus equal to carry it a certain dis- 
tance against average resistance, and that impetus in the 
case of man ought to carry him just ioo years; but the 
increased friction to which he is exposed by all sorts of 
artficial obstacles strewn in his course leads, in an im- 
mense majority of cases, to his arrest in his career at a 
point far short of his natural goal. Still, however, a 
select few do reach that goal, and even run beyond it ; 
and it is upon this accomplished fact, rather than on a 
priori reasoning, that we should base our hope that in 
the good days coming, when sanitary wisdom shall pre- 
vail in the land, and the gold fever and typhoid fever 
are alike stamped out, numbers of our species may be 
able to count on a round hundred years of wholesome 
happy life, and an inevitable old age, tranquil and inter- 
esting, unmarred by the morbid accessories which are 
now generally attached to it. It is the power of repro- 
duction possessed by the cells of the organism as con- 
trolled by certain nerve centers that really determines 
the duration of life and the character of its decline. 

' ' Centenarians are not now the rarcz aves which they 
were once supposed to be. In England and Wales in 
1889 the deaths of seventy-six reputed centenarians were 
reported, and of late years a great number of cases have 
been strictly inquired into in which there could be no 
reasonable doubt that life had been prolonged beyond 
100 years. And these cases have been inquired into, 
not only as to the legitimacy of their claims to have 
made out their century of life, but also as to their bodily 
and mental characteristics ; so that we now know some- 
thing of centenarian pathology, and recognize the fact 
that those who live to a hundred do so by virtue of their 



NO SHORT CUT TO LONGEVITY. 379 

freedom from degenerations, and succumb to inevitable 
old age, which may be described as simple and general 
atrophy. But this simple and general atrophy, although 
of gradual invasion, need not very seriously cripple the 
centenarian until close upon his term of dissolution, and 
cases might be quoted of much activity and enjoyment 
in life even beyond a hundred years of age. . . . 

" According to our estimate, a man at 80 has a fifth 
of his life before him, and in twenty years what may not 
happen? Sir David Brewster married at 76. Four 
years ago, in Vienna, Janos Meryessie, age 84, attempted 
suicide, his reason being that he could no longer support 
his father and mother, who were aged 115 and no 
respectively; and in the British Medical Journal of May 
9th last there was given the portrait of a brave old man, 
who at 102 had undergone an operation for cancer of 
the lip without anaesthetics and without flinching. . . . 

' ' The atrophic changes which have been enumerated 
as characteristic of old age are not altogether beyond 
remedial treatment. Curable, perhaps, they can scarcely 
be called, but much may be done by change of climate, 
by regulation of diet and of habits of life, and by thera- 
peutic agents, to slacken their progress or arrest their 
advance. You will be able in many ways to lessen the 
frailties of your senile patients, although you will not be 
able to confer upon them that rejuvenescence which 
many of them, and those generally the most dilapidated, 
will expect of you. . . . 

* ' There is no short cut to longevity. To win it is 
the work of a lifetime, and the promotion of it is a branch 
of public medicine. Perchance, one of these days, we 
may have an International Congress on Old Age, with 
an exhibition of dotards for warning, and of hale and 
hearty' centenarians for encouragement. At any rate 
you may rest assured that it is by steady obedience to 
the laws of health that old age may be attained, and by 
judicious regimen that it may be prolonged. The 
measures necessary for the promotion of old age on the 
large scale lie beyond the control of the medical profes- 
sion. We cannot change the spirit of the age, abolish 
avarice, vainglory, and the lust of power, or quell even 



3 8o CITIZENS OF CITIES ALWAYS DETERIORATE, 

the gratuitous excesses of the struggle for existence that 
rages around ; but we can do something by pointing out 
to those who will listen to us some great perils that may 
be avoided by inculcating the principles of mental 
hygiene ; and we can give the weight of our support to 
all movements calculated to promote the betterment 
of our race." 

It is noteworthy that Sir James states there is no 
short cut to longevity ; that to win it is the work of a 
lifetime, and that the chief means recommended for its 
attainment are a steady obedience to the laws of health, 
and the following of a judicious regimen. 

Mr. S. A. Strahan, in his address before the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, at Cardiff, 
(see Times report of August 26th) said : ' ' Of course all 
the deteriorating influences of modern civilized life 
tend toward the reduction of vital energy, and to the 
degeneration of the race. ... It is now admitted on all 
hands that the poor toiler in our great centers deteriorates 
with every generation, and, if not revitalized by fresh 
blood, becomes extinct in three or four." 

In view of the strong reasons advanced by Crichton 
Browne, Flourens, and Buff on in favour of the hypoth- 
esis that the natural age of man is from 100 to 140 
years, is it not plain that this deterioration which Mr. 
Strahan points out is necessarily the result of some wide- 
spread transgression, as universal as the race, of natural 
law? Since cereal-eating and the use of a predominant 
portion of starch foods in man's regimen is universal 
throughout civilization, is there not in this fact a good 
reason why the cereal-eater should pause, and why all 
persons should ascertain by experiment if the substitu- 
tion of fruits for bread and starch foods is not sure to be 
followed by greatly increased health and vigour? 



CHAPTER XVII. 

INTEMPERANCE. 

What is the originating cause of the use of, and the 
desire for, stimulants? Unquestionably it is lack of 
health. There are many men and women in the prime 
and vigour of life who use no stimulants whatever, either 
in their food or drink ; and who do not feel from one 
year's end to another a sense of weariness or a need for 
any artificial aid. Let such an individual go for twenty- 
four or forty-eight hours without rest or sleep, and 
attempt to continue labouring for some hours more, and 
a distinct need for a stimulant will be felt. After he 
has exhausted his organism by the twenty-four or forty- 
eight hours' continuous work, if there be a necessity for 
only a limited number of additional hours, a cup of 
coffee, a glass of wine, or a small portion of brandy 
would undoubtedly|enable him to perform the additional 
task with greater ease than without it ; and not unlikely 
enable him in some instances to do in a given brief 
length of time more than he could do else wise. The 
result of such stimulus is easily perceived. Anyone 
who works forty- eight or even twenty- four hours with- 
out rest or sleep inflicts great damage upon the nervous 
system ; and the additional labour that he is able to per- 
form by virtue of the stimulus of the tea or coffee or 
alcohol is a further damage, not only because of the in- 
creased amount of work, but because of the inevitable 
reaction from the stimulus to the nervous system, and 
the weakness that is sure to follow such reaction. 



3 8a RESULT OF OVERSTRAIN. 

The above illustration supposes an extreme case. 
Instead of forty-eight hours' continuous work without 
rest or sleep, let the same vigorous man begin a career 
of working twelve or sixteen hours daily for a term of 
years. Notwithstanding the excessive labour, let it be 
supposed that he is a prudent man, and that he sleeps 
and rests all the time at his disposal. He may not per- 
ceive the overstrain for months, and some very robust 
men even go for years under such a strain as is here 
supposed without the consciousness of their nervous sys- 
tem being undermined. But it is only a question of 
time. With those in vigorous health, but possessing 
only a moderate amount of surplus vitality, it will re- 
quire only a few weeks of excessive overwork to show 
the victim that inroads are being made upon his nervous 
system. If he has more constitutional vigour, a longer 
time will be required; and, as before said, men often 
go years before the invasion is noticed. This weakness 
of the nervous system, then, may be the result of exces- 
sive labour, and of inadequate sleep and rest. 

There are other means of undermining the nervous 
system, and arriving at a similar overstrained condition. 
A first requisite for keeping up the strength and vigour 
of an individual is adequate nutrition. Nutrition can 
only be appropriated by the system after the process of 
digestion. If a moderate bulk of food be taken that is 
rich in nourishing elements and that is easily digested, 
a man fed on such a diet does not undergo as much nerv- 
ous strain as if fed upon a large quantity of diluted 
food which, although possessing an equal amount of 
nourishing elements, requires a much greater effort on 
the part of the organs for its digestion and assimilation. 
It does not matter as to the final result what causes 
have brought about the prostration of the nervous sys- 
tem. If a man has abused himself by continuous work 
for a great number of hours he will feel the need of a 



INADEQUATE NUTRITION A CAUSE. 383 

stimulant. If he has abused himself by performing con- 
tinuously for months or years an undue and unnatural 
amount of labour, however careful he may be to con- 
serve his powers the time is sure to come when he will 
feel the need of a stimulant. If unwittingly he con- 
tinuously feeds himself on a food yielding a small 
amount of nutrition for an excessive amount of digestive 
force, the same result will be obtained ; instead of a sur- 
plus of vital power, there will be a deficit, and as soon as 
this deficit appears, there will result a prostration of the 
nervous system, and a yearning for a stimulant. If, in 
addition to the overstrain caused by excessive labour, and 
by inadequate attention to hygienic requirements, there 
is the further misfortune of eating a food which, how- 
ever nutritious it may be, is still unnatural and unduly 
difficult to digest, an inevitable bankruptcy of the vital 
powers is sure to ensue, and a craving for stimulants be 
experienced. 

Unfortunately the demon of intemperance grows by 
what it feeds on. The very moment that anyone, from 
whatever cause, feels the need for a stimulant, and be- 
gins the use of it, whether tea or coffee, alcohol, or to- 
bacco, there is then another cause making for prostra- 
tion ; in addition to the overstrain there is the injurious 
effect of the stimulant upon the nervous system ; and 
then the victim has not only to suffer from excessive 
work or an inadequate diet, or both, but must undergo 
additional depreciation of vitality from the physiological 
effect of the stimulant indulged in. 

The philosophic student has but to survey the field 
of civilization to perceive that a majority of men and 
women are performing an excessive amount of labour, 
and are taking inadequate sleep and rest. It is thus 
easy to understand why it is that the human race, in all 
ages and nations, has reached out for some form of 
stimulant. 



384 GROWS BY WHAT IT FEEDS ON. 

As before said, gratifying the craving for stimulation 
with tea, coffee, or alcohol serves but to further deprave 
the system and further cause it to require stimulation. 
It is for this reason that all these poisons and habits 
mutually play into each other's hands. Anyone who 
eschews tea or coffee, as well as alcoholic drinks, and 
who has studied this question, is well aware that the use 
of tea and coffee paves the way for the use of tobacco, at 
any rate in the male, and that anyone using tea, coffee 
or tobacco is much more apt to acquire the alcoholic 
habit than one who does not use these stimulants. 

A perception of these principles affords the rationale 
and explanation not only of the causes of intemperance, 
but of the proper methods to be used for its prevention 
and cure. Whatever habits or practices tend to under- 
mine the nervous system must be discontinued. Excess- 
ive work must be refrained from, and foods requiring 
an unnatural and undue strain upon the nervous system 
for their digestion must be avoided. The conditions to 
be sought for are freedom from overwork ; the use of a 
nourishing and easily digested food ; and the avoidance 
of all stimulants — tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol. 

If the contention unfolded in preceding chapters of 
this work be admitted as correct — that a much larger 
proportion of heat-forming food is needed by the system 
than all others ; that the predominating nourishment in 
cereals and vegetables is in the form of starch ; and that 
this starch cannot be digested and assimilated by the 
system except by excessive strain, and an inevitable 
waste of nervous power ; and if the sweet fruits contain 
a predominant quantity of this heat-giving nourishment 
in a condition all ready to be assimilated by the system 
without digestion and without nervous strain, it must be 
plain that the universal habit of cereal-eating is a prime 
cause of nervous prostration, and an ever-acting factor 
tending to the contraction of the alcoholic habit. 



BENEFITS FROM VEGETARIANISM EXPLAINED, 385 

Followers of vegetarianism have claimed, and justly, 
that their system is favourable to temperance, and to 
the cure of the alcoholic habit. Since in the adoption of 
vegetarianism there is the chance of taking an even 
larger proportion of starch foods than was used before, 
the reader will naturally inquire how this system can be 
said to be favourable to temperance in face of the fact 
of the larger use of starch foods. It may be that one 
making a change from the ordinary diet of civilization 
to the vegetarian diet is not at all certain to use an in- 
creased amount of bread and cereals. The accustomed 
dishes that appeal to their palate are wanting. They 
have not as many tempting sauces to induce the taking 
of more food than is required for the needs of the 
system, and these two forces are frequently operative on 
a new convert to vegetarianism to cause him to use even 
a less amount of starch foods at the outset than was used 
before its adoption. But this is not by any means the 
only factor which enters into the problem. To become 
a vegetarian is to become a student of hygiene ; to be- 
come impressed with the importance of obedience to 
hygienic law, — with the importance of simplicity in diet 
and living, — with a perception of the prostrating and 
dangerous effect of stimulants and especially of tobacco 
and alcohol, and with the importance of regularity in 
the times of eating, and moderation in quantities. These 
hygienic studies and practices usually tend toward a life 
of temperance. Vegetarians are not, however, generally 
aware of the physiologic effects of tea and coffee, and 
often continue their use. They are obliged to get 
their needed nitrogen either from bread or pulses, or 
from eggs, milk, and cheese. It has been proven by 
scientific experiments in analyzing the excreta that the 
nitrogenous portions of bread and pulses are much more 
difficult to digest, and are much more apt to be passed 
through the system without digestion, than the nitrogen 



386 COMBINING ADVANTAGES OF BOTH. 

found in fish or flesh. Experiments have also shown 
that eggs, milk, and cheese are more difficult to digest 
than flesh foods, and hence a convert to vegetarianism 
is handicapped by being obliged to expend a greater 
amount of nervous force to obtain his needed nitrogen 
than while he was living upon a mixed diet. 

The natural food system combines all the advantages 
of vegetarianism and escapes its evils. It pleads for a 
much greater simplicity in diet, and teaches that tea, 
coffee, and tobacco play into each other's hands and pre- 
pare the way for King Alcohol. Its followers are able 
to get their heat-giving food with almost no digestive 
effort, and consequently no strain upon the nervous sys- 
tem ; and are able to obtain the nitrogenous portion of 
their nourishment also with a less expenditure of diges- 
tive force. Viewed from whatever standpoint, it will be 
seen that these plain teachings of physiology stand to- 
gether to form an impregnable bulwark of temperance 
for all who will adopt them ; and that the substitution of 
the sweet fruits for bread, cereals, and starchy vegetables 
is an invaluable factor both for the prevention and cure 
of the drinking habit. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SUMMING UP. 

The reader who has carefully followed the preceding 
chapters of Part III. will have noticed that the greatest 
stress and dependence is placed upon the results of ex- 
periments, — a kind of proof that must on all sides be ac- 
knowledged to be scientific. It has been shown that the 
phenomenal success of the Salisbury treatment — an ex- 
clusive diet of beef and hot water — is due to the fact that 
it is based on an exclusively non-starch diet ; that the 
growing favour with which milk is received by physi- 
cians of all schools is because it furnishes a diet without 
starch; that the world-famed benefits derivable from 
treatment at the German spas are accomplished upon a 
diet largely composed of meat and animal products, and 
in which bread and vegetables are reduced to a mini- 
mum ; that the treatment by the writer of some hun- 
dreds of patients for the reduction of obesity, where an 
exclusive diet of flesh was prescribed, also resulted in 
marked benefits to the patients ; and that since the pub- 
lication of the non-starch food system in England some 
hundreds of people have been induced to follow a non- 
starch diet, and have publicly testified to great benefits. 
The grape cure, which has accomplished such phenome- 
nal effects on the Continent, is made up chiefly of a sys- 
tematic diet of from three to eight pounds of grapes 
daily. As has been elsewhere shown, such an amount 
of fruit will furnish all the heat-giving food that the 
system is in need of; and such patients are given only a 



3&3 CURES FROM THE NON-STARCH DIET. 

minimum of bread. These cures clearly illustrate the 
wisdom of the reduction in the amount of starch foods, 
and the benefits derived from the use of aperient fruits. 

As has been pointed out in the chapter on corpu- 
lence, and elsewhere in this work, patients suffering 
from obesity are nearly always cured by a diet from 
which bread and all starch foods are eliminated, and 
those suffering from diabetes are generally much bene- 
fited by the same regimen. If these patients afterwards 
return to a starch diet, they usually suffer a return of the 
complaint. If a non-starch diet is again administered, 
the obese patients return to their normal size, and sugar 
disappears from the urine of the diabetic, and the other 
characteristic symptoms are allayed, only to again re- 
appear in both cases upon the return to a starch diet. 
These facts being incontestably established, it may safely 
be assumed that whatever lesions physicians may decide 
upon as being the proximate causes of obesity and dia- 
betes, a cereal and starch diet is thus clearly demon- 
strated to be the primal cause. It is in order in this 
connection to point out that Asiatic cholera originates in 
a country where the nourishment of the people is de- 
rived from an almost exclusive starchy diet. Bearing 
in mind our central contention that the starch foods 
necessitate an undue and unnatural strain upon the in- 
testines, it becomes probable that the origin of cholera 
may be traced to the use of cereals. Indeed, typhoid fever 
and all enteric diseases are probably only made possible 
by the weakness of the intestines consequent upon the 
unnatural strain induced by a starch diet. 

Our contention that bread, cereals, and starch foods 
are an unnatural and injurious food for man is further 
confirmed by reference to the physical conformation of 
the digestive organs, the main stomach being a large 
and the second stomach a relatively insignificant organ. 
The regimen of which cereal and starch foods form the 



CONFIRMED BY PROFESSOR GOODFELLOW. 389 

basis necessitates the digestion of a major portion of onr 
food in the second stomach, which entails a gradual, 
ruinous strain upon the nervous system. We contend 
that fruits and nuts and foods similarly digested are the 
natural and physiologic foods for man, being a diet in 
which much the larger proportion of the nourishing 
elements are digested in the first stomach, and only an 
insignificant portion, corresponding to the relative size 
of the organ, is relegated to the second stomach for 
digestion. 

A further scientific confirmation is found in the 
experiments of Professor Goodfellow, in which it is 
shown that the function of the saliva is chiefly mechani- 
cal, and that even under the most favourable mastica- 
tion and insalivation of the food but an insignificant 
portion of starch is converted into sugar in the mouth ; 
and since the power of the saliva is destroyed by the acid 
contents of the stomach, no further conversion of starch 
into sugar can take place after the food is swallowed. 
Physiologists will at once see that persistence in a diet 
in which bread and starch vegetables constitute the most 
important feature must necessarily tax the nervous 
energy for the secretion of the called-for amount of 
pancreatic juice, and for the digestion of such starch 
foods, which waste of vital force is saved by a diet of 
fruits, wherein the heat-giving elements require no 
digestion, and which are already prepared by nature for 
almost immediate absorption and assimilation. 

It has been shown that whereas starch foods, unas- 
sisted by the irritating effects of bran and coarse grains, 
directly tend to constipation, fruits, on the contrary, 
while performing the same office in the system — namely, 
supporting the heat of the body and the vital force — 
contain an acid that causes a secretion of fluid in the 
intestines, and hence is always aperient ; moreover, that 
fruit food, while it saves the expenditure of vital force 



390 TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN— ROWBOTHAM. 

required in the protracted digestion of starch foods, 
scarcely needs digestion at all, but is already in a con- 
dition to be absorbed and assimilated when first ingested, 
and likewise contributes to a prompt action of the excre- 
tory functions from the fact that its nutritive elements are 
readily used up by the system ; whereas starchy foods, 
which are necessarily retained in the system some hours 
longer than fruits before digestion takes place, are shown 
by this prolonged retention to have a necessarily con- 
stipating as well as nerve-prostrating tendency. 

Extensive quotations are made from a work pub- 
lished nearly fifty years ago by Mr. Rowbotham, a phy- 
sician of the north of England, in which he adduced in- 
controvertible proofs that cereal foods necessarily tend 
to the ossification of the joints and tissues, and to bring 
on premature old age, decrepitude, and death. Mr. 
Rowbotham relates most interesting and startling cases 
where the substitution of a fruit for a cereal diet 
wrought remarkable benefits, notably in the case of the 
woman who, during three previous confinements and the 
preceding periods of gestation, suffered agonizing pains 
and distressing illness, and in a fourth confinement, 
when fruit was substituted for bread and starchy vegeta- 
bles for only a portion of the period of gestation, the dis- 
tressing ailments that had been engendered during the 
early months of gestation while partaking of a starch 
diet were entirely overcome, the confinement being 
prompt and painless, and the power to resume ordinary 
duties returning immediately. These telling facts are 
further strengthened by the circumstance that the bene- 
ficial effect of the employment of the fruit diet followed 
some of the instances of painful gestation and confine- 
ment, and preceded in one case, thus proving that it was 
not a fortunate and unusually quick return of vigour on 
the part of the mother, as is sometimes witnessed, but 
manifestly the result of the difference in diet. 



DE LACY EVANS AND PROF. GUBLER. 391 

It is also shown that Dr. De Lacy Evans, a well- 
known London physician and author, in his scholarly, 
scientific, and most valuable work entitled ' ' How to Pro- 
long Life," sets forth most elaborate and confirmatory 
proofs of Mr. Rowbotham's contention, and demon- 
strates two points : first, that bread and cereal foods are 
best calculated to bring on premature decrepitude ; and 
second, that fruit is the best of foods for the preven- 
tion of ossification of the joints and tissues and degen- 
eration of the arteries, and consequent decrepitude and 
death. 

While it is not improbable that the writings and dis- 
coveries of Mr. Rowbotham influenced the subsequent 
work of Dr. Evans, there is no indication of the investi- 
gations of these gentlemen having influenced the conclu- 
sions and suggestions of Prof. Gubler, of Paris. Indeed, 
there is internal evidence that this authority arrives at 
his conclusions from entirely independent sources ; and 
while his work unconsciously offers the strongest con- 
firmation of the contentions of Mr. Rowbotham and Dr. 
Evans, he is confirmed by the investigations of Drs. 
LeBlanc, Vibert, and Raymond. 

Again, another physician, and once more in a foreign 
country, Germany, after having enthusiastically adopted 
a vegetarian diet for some years, is horrified to discover 
that his arteries are showing signs of cretaceous degener- 
ation, and with natural solicitude he addresses himself to 
the solution of the phenomenon. He tells us that he 
quite accidentally found the explanation in a work of 
Dr. Monin, of Paris, who, in his turn, had had his atten- 
tion called to the explanation of atheroma by Professor 
Gubler. So it is seen that physicians in England, 
France, and Germany, quite unconscious of each other's 
work, have independently arrived at the same conclu- 
sions, and thus offer the strongest confirmatory proofs of 
the correctness of each other's position. 



393 CEREALS CALL FOR SALT. 

Hygienists and physicians of the radical school are 
many of them convinced that salt and high seasonings 
are injurious not only for their immediate effect upon 
the system, but also because they induce the desire for, 
and the habit of taking, other and stronger stimulants, 
which in their turn pave the way for still stronger, and 
thus lead directly to the opium and alcohol habits. In 
Dr. Holbrook's work " Eating for Strength " conclusive 
evidence is given that a diet of cereals and starch vege- 
tables demands the addition of salt, whereas a non- 
starch diet, such as fruits and flesh, does not call for 
this injurious mineral substance, as is proven by the 
facts there adduced of the habits of primitive peoples. 

Our contention is further strengthened by the testi- 
mony of a no less eminent physician than J. Milner 
Fothergill, who points out that the pre-digestion of 
starch foods is valuable not only for infants, but for in- 
valids, and the more we become acquainted with the 
increasing derangements of digestion, the more we must 
resort to the pre-digestion of starch foods. This is an 
unintended tribute from Dr. Fothergill in favour of the 
fruit diet, since in fruit we have the same elements, 
already pre-digested by nature, as in the cereals. 

Further, Dr. Holbrook points out, also unintention- 
ally, that fruit is rich in the same heat-giving elements 
that are found in bread and cereals, and that these fruits 
require no digestion, and hence no waste of vital power; 
and we have from Herbert Spencer- not only a strong 
panegyric upon fruit, but the best of reasons for demand- 
ing that we get our nourishment from that food which 
requires least digestive strain. 

From an entirely different standpoint in the chapter 
on comparative anatomy we have equally strong con- 
firmatory proofs of our contention, in the uniformity of 
scientific testimony that man belongs to the f rugivora , 
that, indeed, he bears a greater resemblance to the ape 



THE TROPICS TEEMING WITH FRUIT. 393 

than that animal does to the lower orders of monkeys, 
and that these wild men of the woods live on nuts and 
fruits to the exclusion of cereals, pulses and starchy 
vegetables. Attention is especially called to the remark- 
able table appended to that chapter, showing the differ- 
ences between man and flesh-eating and grass-eating 
animals on the one hand, and his striking likeness to 
the fruit- eating animals on the other. 

Our contention is further strengthened and reinforced 
by the chapter on fruits versus cereals, taken from 
Knight's " Food of Man." It will be noticed that here 
again is a witness the compilers of which had no sus- 
picion of the injuriousness of cereal foods, and this testi- 
mony is entirely free from any possibility of partisan- 
ship. From researches contained in this work it is made 
plain, first, that primitive man could not have been 
acquainted with cereals, pulses, and starchy vegetables ; 
that cereals have been developed from one of the family 
of grass plants, now unknown to botanists ; and second, 
that tropical regions are filled with the wonderful lux- 
uriance of nature's provision for man in the way of lus- 
cious fruits that quite equal in size, fecundity, and 
flavour the favourite fruits of modern horticulture. It is 
thus proven that cereals, pulses, and starchy vegetables 
are not a part of the natural fruit of man, and that fruit 
and nuts pre-eminently are such foods. 

Our position is further strengthened by the chapter 
on the value of forest trees, wherein it is pointed out 
that, in obedience to the universal harmony running in 
the provisions of nature, that which has been shown to 
be the natural food of man will by its adoption reclothe 
the earth with trees ; whereas the use of bread, cereals 
and vegetables destroys forests, and denudes the earth of 
this safeguard to climate, rainfall, and fertility. 

The brief chapter " In Line with Progress" further 
strengthens our position by pointing out that the fruit 



394 UNIVERSAL LA W AND PROGRESS. 

diet continuously tends to domestic simplicity, and the 
abridgment of the hours of labour ; whereas cereal foods 
tend to complexity, and the multiplication of labour. 

All things work together for good. Our contention 
is further remarkably strengthened by the chapter on 
the universal reign of law, which points out the hereto- 
fore unobserved fact that among the mammalia man is 
the only animal, with the exception of those which he 
controls, that lives on starch foods ; that the bulk of all 
animals on the planet, even including the herbivora, live 
on a diet chiefly nitrogenous ; and the remarkable fact 
is pointed out that the only animals which are adapted 
to the eating of cereals and grain foods are provided 
with peculiar organs of digestion entirely unlike those 
of man or any of the mammalia. 

Our contention is further strengthened by the chap- 
ter on the longevity of man, which is made up chiefly 
from the writings of that eminent medical authority, Sir 
James Crichton Browne. This distinguished author 
clearly proves that the natural term of man's life is at 
least a hundred years; and, moreover, that the usual 
characteristics of old age, as lameness, impaired sight, 
teeth, and hearing, grey hair, etc., are not naturally 
the results of old age, but arise from transgressions of 
physiologic law. Further, this authority clearly proves 
by statistics that instead of the rate of longevity being 
lengthened, as is usually supposed, in point of fact it is 
decreasing. Such general results clearly indicate a 
general cause ; and since it is shown that bread, cereals, 
and starchy foods are not man's natural diet, and that 
the assimilation of these foods entails an unnatural 
strain upon the digestive functions and a waste of vital 
power, the curtailment of longevity in modern life is 
reasonably explainable on the hypothesis of the use of 
bread, cereals, and starchy foods. 

One of the burning questions of modern life — namely, 



CAUSE OF INTEMPERANCE. 395 

what is the cause and cure of intemperance — presents, 
in Chapter XVII., additional evidence in favour of our 
contention. It is shown that the strain and waste of 
vital force required in the digestion of bread and starch 
foods is itself an adequate reason for all persons suffer- 
ing from these causes to reach out for an artificial stimu- 
lant. These stimulants are, in the first instance, season- 
ings and spices, next tea, coffee, and tobacco, and next 
opium and alcohol. And while intemperance, which is 
decimating and undermining England and America, is 
thus shown to be the legitimate and logical outcome of 
cereal food, a fruit diet, on the contrary, by its nourish- 
ing and satisfying qualities, its simplicity and complete- 
ness, and its ease of digestion, calls for no stimulants, 
and makes intemperance impossible where it is followed. 
Darwin's theory of evolution — owing to the profound 
research, logical presentation, and temperateness of the 
author, together with the indefatigable industry and 
giant power of his great apostle, Herbert Spencer — in 
less than a third of a century has revolutionized modern 
thought. Students of science and logic familiar with 
that system are asked carefully to consider the facts and 
reasons upon which that system is based, and compare 
the same with the facts and reasons which form an un- 
broken chain of proofs and confirmations sustaining the 
theory of the natural food of man, and the system of 
therapeutics based thereon. One is an inquiry into the 
origin of man ; and the other into his primitive, natural, 
and physiologic diet. It is confidently believed that 
whatever may be said of the former, in the latter there 
are no missing links; and immense as have been the 
changes — chiefly in science, literature, and modes of 
thought — wrought by the one, it will be seen by refer- 
ence to the following chapter that far greater changes 
both in the race and the planet are involved in the 
other. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE. 

In the foregoing chapter a summary of the principal 
arguments in favor of the natural food theory is pre- 
sented to show the many lines that converge in demon- 
strating that all cereal and starch foods are unnatural 
and unwholesome for man. In this chapter many of the 
same arguments are brought to bear upon quite another 
matter, namely, what contributions to science are made 
by, or are the outgrowth of this new food theory. 

(i) Nuts and fruits, as has been shown, must have 
been the primal, and therefore are the natural food of 
man. 

(2) The chief difference between man's natural food 
and the food of civilization is the fact that starch is an 
insignificant portion of the one, and the chief constituent 
of the other. 

Physiologists and biologists unite in affirming that 
abounding health and vigour depend, first, upon ade- 
quate nutrition; and second, upon the conservation of 
vital force. Since nutrition depends upon digestion, 
and digestion upon a greater or less expenditure of 
nerve power, it follows that the use of a food which re- 
quires a greater expenditure of nervous energy in its 
digestion than is natural is an unnecessary and harmful 
waste of vital force ; and if such food forms the principal 
part of man's diet, it becomes a factor — and presumably 
a principal factor — in sapping the foundation of his vital 
force, and therefore of his health and vigour. Since 
carbonaceous, or heat- forming and vital-force-giving food 



BENEFITS FROM A MEAT DIET EXPLAINED. 397 

forms the larger portion of man's diet (some sixteen 
ounces of this food being required to less than five 
ounces of all others), and since, in man's natural food, 
the sweet fruits, the required carbonaceous element is 
found in the form of glucose, and requires no digestion 
to prepare it for absorption and assimilation ; and since 
the bread, cereals, pulses, and starchy vegetables (foods 
not produced by nature, but by the devices and industry 
of man) which are now used by man as the basis of his 
diet, and the source of his heat and vital force, require 
digestion in both the main stomach and the intestines 
before they are rendered absorbable and assimilable, it 
follows that bread, cereals, pulses, and starch vegetables 
are a factor — and probably a principal factor — in the 
destruction of man's health and vigour, and also the 
principal cause of the widespread illness and premature 
decrepitude and death of modern life. 

(3) Physicians and scientists have noted that an ex- 
clusive diet of meat and water — the Salisbury treatment 
— produces most remarkable benefits in most, if not in 
all patients seriously out of health. An exclusive diet 
of milk, not only in diabetes, but in most disorders, also 
produces excellent results in general practice ; and this 
diet is coming more and more into favour with physi- 
cians of all schools. The discovery of the natural food 
of man, and of the injurious nature of bread and all 
starch food, explains the benefits of the meat and milk 
diets; and points out that the great benefits to multi- 
tudes of patients at Carlsbad, Wiesbaden, and like health 
resorts are chiefly the result of the increase of meat and 
milk in the diet, and the greatly decreased amount of 
bread and potatoes. It is not that flesh or milk are a 
portion of man's natural diet, but that these foods are, 
like man's more distinctly natural food, chiefly digested 
in the main stomach, and that they displace bread and 
starch foods, thus avoiding an unnecessary waste of 



398 NATURAL FOOD THEORY SOLVES PROBLEMS. 

nerve power; and the resultant accumulation of vital 
force is manifested in greatly increased health, and 
vigour. 

(4) Save in the case of some birds, all fishes and ani- 
mals (except man and those controlled by him) live on 
other than starch foods. 

(5) Zoologists, since the days of Cuvier, have pointed 
out that man belongs to the frugivorous animals, and is 
especially allied to the long-armed ape ; and these nat- 
uralists wrongly deduced from this fact that man's 
natural food consists of fruits, nuts, and cereals; whereas 
the orang-outang, the animal most nearly approaching 
man in structure and anatomy, lives on nuts and fruits, 
and is not provided by nature with cereals. 

Since the herbivorous animals subsist on grass, and 
since cereals are the fruit of grass, it has been taken for 
granted that cereals are the natural food of cattle; 
whereas, in a state of nature, seeds form an insignificant 
portion of the food of cattle, and are only provided for 
them by the art of man. Thus it is seen, since grass 
itself is not a starchy but a nitrogenous food, and since 
cereals require a more difficult and utterly different diges- 
tion, why it is that a grain-fed horse is more liable to dis- 
ease and is shorter-lived than one which is fed on grass ; 
and why it is that horses are turned out to grass when 
they are broken down and need to be restored to health. 

(6) It has been and is the current teaching of physi- 
ologists that starch foods are largely digested in the 
mouth; and that this result is insured by thorough 
mastication and insalivation ; whereas it has now been 
shown that but an insignificant portion, averaging prob- 
ably less than two per cent., of starch foods is converted 
into sugar by the saliva; and the remainder, although 
remaining in the stomach until the nitrogenous portion 
is digested, must be passed on the intestines before 
digestion takes place. 



SYLVESTER GRAHAM'S GREAT DELUSION. 399 

(7) A discussion of the natural food system has re- 
vealed — what was before only dimly perceived — that 
fruits are aperient by virtue of the chemical action of an 
acid which they contain ; whereas bread, cereals, pulses, 
and starch vegetables inevitably have a constipating effect 
which is only overcome by the mechanical and inflam- 
matory action of the rough bran of the wheat, or the 
rough coats of other grains and pulses. This continuous 
irritation of the stomach and bowels, if persisted in for 
months and years, is sure to bring about chronic inflam- 
mation and an eventual breakdown. If the bran is 
coarsely ground this breakdown may be accomplished in 
months, if finely ground it is likely to require years. 
Thus the widespread popularity of wholemeal bread and 
coarse oatmeal is a great delusion; originating with 
Sylvester Graham and the vegetarian propaganda, its 
influence has become widespread, and has far outrun the 
movement from which it sprung. 

(8) Another widespread error prevalent among vege- 
tarians — and one the influence of which has also ex- 
tended beyond that movement — is the belief that the 
use of butter, fat, and oil is injurious. That this teach- 
ing is wholly wrong is for the first time pointed out by 
the fruit and nut theory. Nuts having been shown to 
be a factor in man's natural food, it is plain that oil or 
fat in some form is an indispensable requisite ; and this 
explains why it is that the southern negro as surely 
demands fat bacon with his maize as the Esquimaux is 
sure to demand large quantities of oil and blubber ; and 
why it is that every race of man, in barbarism or civiliza- 
tion, insists upon vegetable oil — as in Spain and Italy — 
or upon a substitute in the form of butter, cheese, or the 
flesh of animals. 

(9) Since the sweets fruits of the south, together with 
nuts, are the natural food of man, a physiologic reason 
is given for the first time why all nations and races 



400 SUGAR, STIMULANTS, AND POTASH. 

of men — being deprived of the sweet fruits intended 
for their vise by nature — insist upon sweets, desserts, 
and confections, both at and between meals. While 
physiologists and chemists have been aware that the 
sugar of fruits is glucose, and all ready for assimilation, 
and that the sugar from cane, beet-root, maple, sorghum, 
and vegetables is insoluble and n on -assimilable by the 
system until after having undergone digestion both in 
the stomach and intestines, these physicians and scien- 
tists have not been aware that man has, in the prolific 
sweet fruits of the south, a sugar that is far less expen- 
sive than sugar manufactured from cane or beet-root, 
and which, as before said, requires no digestion, and 
hence no expenditure of vital force ; therefore, when 
these undoubted facts of science are logically applied 
to the diet of man, it will at once abolish the manufacture 
and distribution of cane and beet sugar, and contribute 
to the building up of the health, vigour and longevity 
of the race. 

(10) The physiologic effect of salt, pepper, and like 
irritants, as well as such narcotics and stimulants as tea, 
coffee, tobacco, and alcohol, upon the system is, first, to 
goad the nerves to undue action, which is natually fol- 
lowed by a corresponding depression. This continual 
action and reaction serves to benumb the nervous sys- 
tem until generally no food will be relished unless the 
accustomed goad in the form of salt and other strong 
seasonings is administered; and if the narcotics and 
stimulants (tea, coffee, tobacco, or alcohol) be indulged 
in, a still further benumbing and destruction of the 
nerves is accomplished. 

It is shown in Chapter XL, Part III., that cereal, 
pulse, and vegetable foods require the addition of large 
quantities of salt to neutralize the injurious effect of the 
excessive quantity of potash contained in these vegetable 
foods. Fruit and nuts, on the contrary, are adapted to 



CAUSE OF DRUNKENNESS. FORESTRY. 401 

the tastes and appetites of man without the addition of 
salt or other irritants; and science is thus, in these 
fruits, put in possession of a food for man which is not 
only more easily digested than cereals and vegetables, 
but one also which requires no salt and thus avoids the 
wounding and benumbing of the nerves involved in the 
use of bread, cereals, and vegetables. 

(11) There are thus two factors in bread and cereals 
which favour the use of narcotics and stimulants, and 
lead to chronic alcoholism : (a) the strain upon the nerv- 
ous system involved in the use of a carbonaceous food 
which is not absorbable and assimilable by the system 
until it has undergone digestion both in the main 
stomach and in the intestines, and in consequence of 
which the overstrained nerves call for a pick-me-up, 
first in the form of tea, coffee, or tobacco, and finally 
alcohol (usually wine at first and then spirits) ; (b) vege- 
table foods, from their excessive potash, demand large 
quantities of salt, which in its turn, by depressing the 
nervous system, paves the way to the use of narcotics 
and stimulants. We are thus put in possession of scien- 
tific reasons why bread and cereals inevitably lead to 
intemperance, and why the substitution of fruit for 
bread, cereals, and vegetables is at once a prevention 
and an aid in the cure of this evil. 

(12) The science of forestry shows that trees are a 
necessary element to make the planet habitable by man ; 
that great spaces which are now rainless, barren wastes 
were once fertile with fruitful products and dotted with 
trees, which in their turn insured an abundant rainfall. 
Cereal agriculture denudes the earth of trees which na- 
ture so abundantly supplies, to make room for the plow 
and the grain ; and the result of this denudation is seen 
in America in the increasing number of dried-up beds 
of streams that were formerly filled with running water ; 
and the increasing number of hurricanes and tornadoes 



402 PARADISE REGAINED. 

with which that fertile country is yearly visited, dealing 
death and destruction in their path. In the discovery 
that fruits and nuts were the primal, and are the natural 
diet of man, science points out a food which, compared 
with bread and cereals, is not only more prolific, more 
easily produced and prepared for the table, more easily 
digested and thereby conserving of vital force, and a 
food which is itself aperient and a blood purifier, and 
therefore making for health and longevity, but a food 
which involves the planting of orchards, and the restora- 
tion to the earth of its natural and needed trees with 
their foliage and bloom and fruit. In short, it will be 
seen that as the race increases in numbers, and more 
and more of the earth's surface is denuded of trees to 
make way for the plow and corn, the logical sequence of 
a cereal diet is to a great extent to denude the earth of 
trees, which in its turn causes tornadoes, droughts, and 
deserts ; whereas the result of a fruit diet is to restore 
trees to the earth, and hasten the coming of the prophe- 
sied day when every man will sit under his own vine 
and fig tree — paradise regained. 



The above enumeration may be fairly claimed as 
contributions to science made by the natural food theory. 
A survey of the results arising from the substitution of 
a fruit for a cereal diet reveals other changes of immense 
magnitude. Agriculture as now known will give way 
to horticulture ; and the exchange and commerce of the 
world will be based on fruit instead of grain. 

If the correctness of the position taken in foregoing 
chapters be admitted, namely, that it is as natural to be 
well as to be born, that illness is always the result of trans- 
gression of physiologic law, and that man's natural 
term of life is 120 years, changes still vaster than the 
revolution of agriculture and commerce, or at all events 
of far greater importance, will inevitably follow. Not 



OPEN AND UNWRINKLED BROW OF AGE. 403 

only will the chemists and drug stores — so far as the 
preparation and sale of drugs and remedies are con- 
cerned — be done away with, but sending for a physician 
for any other purpose than surgery will be unknown. 
Parturition without pain will be considered as a matter 
of course. Emaciation and obesity will be seen to be 
the result of the transgression of physiologic law, abhor- 
rent and deplorable. These diseases are co-related in 
ways of which there is now no thought or suspicion. 
They are both the result of prostration of the organs of 
nutrition. Emaciation is abhorrent in that it simulates 
the deformity and decrepitude of that diseased condition 
which is mistaken for old age; and obesity, while not 
so abhorrent as a tumor upon one side of the body, is 
yet a monstrous deformity, destructive of grace and of 
" the human form divine." 

Beauty will come to be recognized as no more the 
property of youth than of old age. An immature apple 
or peach may be symmetrical, but it does not reach 
perfection until it is not only full grown but fully ma- 
tured as well. So, too, in the coming time, will the 
man or woman at four or five score years be as superior 
in the sense of beauty, as in all senses, to the youth 
or maiden of twenty as the brilliant and fragrant mature 
peach is superior to the colourless and odourless one, 
however symmetrical it may be. 

As prophesied by Shelley, in the coming time ' ' the 
athletic form of age," with its "open and un wrinkled 
brow," will have no "grey deformity," and no "deadly 
germs of langour and disease" — no grey hairs, no 
wrinkles, but perfect hearing, clear eyesight, sound 
teeth, elastic step, physical vigour, and spiritual con- 
tentment. 

The average life of man will be some fourfold greater 
than at present. Adult useful life now begins at the 
age of twenty-five and continues only twenty-five to 



404 POSSIBILITIES OF LONGEVITY. 

thirty-five years, — the exceptions to this rule are not 
common. When man comes to live physiologically he 
will enjoy between ninety and a hundred years of vig- 
orous adult life, or more than threefold what he now 
enjoys. But this is not all. Louis Cornaro taught that 
a man is of no real worth until he has reached the age of 
fifty years, and gained control of his passions ; and Sir 
James Crichton Browne teaches, as has been seen, that 
his powers of wisdom do not develop until after that 
age. At the present time, those who reach that age 
encounter a multitude of infirmities and find their use- 
fulness fettered with premature decrepitude. How differ- 
ent to this will be the natural life. When man has 
attained to that term at which Cornaro says his useful- 
ness begins, he still will have fifty to seventy years of 
vigorous work before him. And with such conditions, 
what useful devices would not an Edison invent, what 
poems a Shelley write. Of what a wealth of music have 
we been deprived by the death of Wagner when he had 
reached only half the natural term' of life. What histories 
might not Carlyle have unearthed and chronicled and 
illumined if he had been free from his aches and pains, 
his dyspepsia and resultant gloom, and were still with us 
in the enjoyment of full vigour. And what additional 
contributions to science and philosophy might we not 
have had from Herbert Spencer if, during his years of 
work, he had been freed from the ill-health that has 
accompanied and delayed him, and if he still had forty 
or fifty years of vigorous work in store. 



1 Mild was the slow necessity of death ; 
The tranquil spirit failed beneath its grasp, 
Without a groan, almost without a fear ; 
Calm as a voyager to some distant land, 
And full of wonder, full of hope as he. 
The deadly germs of langour and disease 
Died in the human frame ; mild purity 
Blessed with all gifts her earthly worshippers. 



"O HAPPY EARTH! REALITY OF HEAVEN 7" 405 

How vigorous then the athletic form of age ! 

How clear its open and unwrinkled brow ; 

Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor eare, 

Had stamped the seal of grey deformity 

On all the mingling lineaments of time. 

How lovely the intrepid front of youth ! 

Which meek-eyed courage decked with freshest grace ; 

Courage of soul, that dreaded not a name, 

And elevated will, that journeyed on 

Through life's phantasmal scene in fearlessness, 

With virtue, love, and pleasure, hand in hand. 

O happy earth ! reality of heaven ! 

Thou consummation of all mortal hope ! . . . 

Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling place ! 
Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, 
Langour, disease, and ignorance, dare not come, 
O happy earth, reality of heaven ! " 

Shelley's Queen Mab. 



INDEX. 



Abernethy, Dr. : Rules for health, 
9. J 9> 31. 

Acid, Aperient : Office of, 45 ; of 
fruit, 66, 144, 148, 287-8, 321; re- 
moves constipation, 245-6; in 
gestation, 260. 

Alcohol : A poison, 46 ; destruc- 
tive effects of, 74-5, 175, 305, 381; 
moderate indulgence in weakens, 
155 ; Dr. Whitmore on, 205. 

Anatomy : Of man and animals 
compared, 327-35. 

Apes : Digestive organs of, 227-8; 
anatomy, habits and diet of, 328- 
335. 347- 

Apples : Stewed or baked, 44 ; con- 
tain much nutrition, 59, 303; with 
flesh diet, 133; in natural-food 
diet, 233, 348. 

Arteries: Athomatous degenera- 
tion of, 304-10. 



B 



Bananas: Constituents of, 59; rich 
in nourishment, 139, 344-5; in 
natural-food diet, 233; interesting 
facts regarding, 343-5- 

Bath: Hot, 32; hot air, 32, 105; 
sitz, 33; in convalescence, 41; for 
children, 51; daily necessary in 



civilization, 99; before retiring, 
99; on rising, 100; cold damag- 
ing, ioo-i, 107; cleanliness first 
object of, 101 ; tepid, 101 ; hot for 
invalids, 101, 105; Turkish, 102, 
1 14-19; temperature of, 102, 104, 
108, 1 15-16; luxurious, 108; Father 
Kniepp's use of, m-12; in typhus, 
112; for insomnia, 113; home 
Turkish, 114-19; regularity in, 
118-19. 

Bedroom: Essentials of, 43; venti- 
lation of, 80-9; heating of, 81. 

Bed: Clothing for, 43, 81-2. 

Bread: Elements of, 58, 242, 319-20; 
coarse irritates and inflames, 144, 
146; wholemeal bad, 145-50, 244; 
induces obesity, 163, 166, 226; 
with grapes, 232; as toast, 242; 
"the staff of death," 253; in an- 
cient times, 291 ; hastens old age, 
3ii- 

Breathing: Advantages of nostril, 
87; through nostrils natural, 91- 
7; through mouth leads to disease, 
91-7; mental attitude affects, 96; 
through mouth cured, 98. 

Butter: In Salisbury diet, 129; as a 
food, 140, 253. 



Cathartics, Herb Tea: Found ben- 
eficial, 30; a hygienic aid, 31. 



408 



INDEX. 



Catlin, George: Valuable writings 
of, 91 ; experience among savages, 
92; on cholera infection, 94; cured 
mouth breathing, 96. 

Cheese: A food for convalescents, 
58; contains oil and nitrogen, 140; 
in natural-food diet, 233; as a 
food, 253, 290. 

Children: Treatment for, 51-2; 
milk best for, 53, 292; prepared 
foods for, 54; fruit recommended 
for, 54; fed too often, 54-5 ; starch 
foods especially unfavorable for, 
55; effect of diet on, 263-4; diet 
for, 293-4, 322-4. 

Chocolate: Constituents of, 73; 
should not be used, 143. 

Climate: Advantages of southern, 
86-7; exposure in cold damaging, 
150-3; effect of trees on, 351. 

Clothing: Of bed and patient, 43; 
woolen best, 81-3. 

Cocoa-nut: With milk and eggs, 
142. 

Coffee: A poison, 46; compared to 
opium and brandy, 73-4, 381; ad- 
vised against, 143, 154, 384. 

Constipation: A result of starch 
food, 28-30, 244-7; present in ill- 
ness, 39, 185; hot water for, 127-8; 
action of wholemeal bread in, 147; 
244-5; fruit removes, 148,321,323. 

Convalescence: Treatment in, 41-8; 
avoid starch foods in, 58; diet in, 

59- 
Cooking: Not natural, 135; 288-9; °f 
fruits, 135-6; of starch foods, 136; 
357-9*» °f meat, 137; of proper 
food, 138-44. 

Crichton-Browne, Sir James: Re- 
marks on old age and its cause, 
368-80. 

Croup: Treatment for, 52. 

Cure: Law of, 8; Father Kneipp's, 



110-13; Dr. Salisbury's, 126-34; 
Priessnitz's, 234; grape, 232, 387. 



D 



Dates: In convalescence, 44; for 
children, 54; good food, 59, 130, 
133, 140, 233, 303, 340; with milk, 
142; cultivation and many good 
qualities of, 340-3. 

Diagnosis: A science, 35; in illness, 
36-9- 

Diet: Brown bread and milk, 63-4; 
beef and hot water, 67; for differ- 
ent occupations and seasons, 70- 
71; Dr. Salisbury's, 128-30, 230; 
in obesity, 163—5, 231; curative 
action of proper, 1 70-7, 234-5, 
387; injurious action of improper, 
173, 284; too abrupt change of, 
176; errors in the chief cause of 
disease, 1 15-19, 215-16, 289; man's 
natural, 223-8, 288-9, 33^—8, 363; 
milk, 232, grape, 232, 387; at Ger- 
man Spas, 232, 387; of starchy 
food tends to constipation, 245-6; 
experiments in, 256-62; effect of 
on teeth, 263; Rowbotham on, 
266; of fruit praised, 303; of rich 
and poor, 272, 306; of vegetables 
shortens life, 312-13; of starch 
food natural to birds, 361-3. 

Digestion: Controlled by nervous 
system, 6; of starch foods, 55, 64, 
226-7, 239-41, 245-6, 319-20, 388; 
fruits easy of, 60, 226, 321; aided 
by hot water drinking, 127-8; pro- 
cess of, 252; of potatoes and rice, 
316. 

Digestive Organs: In men and 
higher apes, 227-8, 335; of birds, 
36i-3- 

Diphtheria: Treatment for, 52. 

Disease: When resultant, 7; how 
to treat acute attacks of, 11; in- 



INDEX. 



409 



duced by mouth-breathing, 91-8 
brought on by excesses, 15 1-8 
consequent on obesity, 160-3 
drugs sometimes cure, 184-7; ag- 
gravated by opium, 191; treatment 
oi as viewed by eminent doctors, 
201-9; chiefly caused by errors in 
diet, 215-16, 289, 388-91; more 
common in man than animals, 
221; vegetable diet induces, 312- 
13; becoming more frequent, 365, 
369, 370- 
Doctors: Only useful office of, 8; 
basic errors of, 9; misled, 9; wrong 
treatment by, 10; misunderstand 
nature, 11, 14, 189-90; allopathic 
and homoeopathic, 14, 191; herb, 
15; Mind Cure, 15-16, 156, 193-4; 
sometimes do good, 19, 185; aim 
of should be, 58; ideas of regard- 
ing obesity, 164; many self-sacri- 
ficing and generous, 189; undue 
influence of, 191, 194; above the 
law, 192; should they advertise? 
194-6; intolerant and monopolis- 
tic, 192-200; what they say of 
themselves and their profession, 
201-9. 

Drinks, Alcoholic: Should be dis- 
pensed with, 143, 216, 384; effects 
of, 160, 306, 381; Dr. Keeley's 
cure, 196-7; at English society 
dinners, 211 -14. 

Drugs: Wrongful administration, 
183; extreme ideas of hygienists 
and vegetarians regarding, 183- 
4; valuable in malaria and other 
diseases, 184-5; cures by, 186-7; 
opinions of eminent doctors on, 
201-9. 

E 

Earthy Salts: Bring on ossifica- 
tion, old age, and death, 251-303, 
304-10; in cereals, 288, 315-17; in 
vegetables, 312-13, 315-17. 



Eggs: How to prepare, 44, 45, 141; 
for convalescents, 58; as a food, 
140, 233, 266, 290. 

Enema: When needed, 27; benefi- 
cial action of, 30-1. 

Evans, Dr. De Lacy: Quotations 
from works of, 278-303. 

Exercise: Beneficial effect of, 48, 
106-7, 120; best way of inducing 
perspiration, 104, 106; in Father 
Kneipp's cure, 112; walking, lawn 
tennis, croquet, roller-skating, 
rowing, wheeling, baseball, 
cricket, horseback riding, gymna- 
sium, domestic, 120-25; Professor 
Wright's method, 124; too muhc 
damaging, 155. 



Fasting : Beneficial in sickness, 21- 
23; a hygienic rule, 24; absolutely 
necessary, 42 ; for sick animals, 
222. 

Feet : Cold in illness, 38-9 ; how to 
warm, 42. 

Fear : Harmful, 40 ; a strain on 
vitality, 156. 

Figs : in convalescence, 44 ; with 
milk, 64-5 ; how to prepare, 66 ; 
with Salisbury diet, 131, 133; rich 
in nourishment, 139, 303; in nat- 
ural-food diet, 233; origin and 
cultivation of, 338-9. 

Fish : For convalescents, 68 ; as a 
food, 141, 233, 267-70, 291-316. 

Flesh Food : How to prepare, 43 ; 
131-2, 140; in Salisbury cure, 128- 
33, 230; in reduction of obesity, 
163, 165-6, 231; objections to on 
ethical grounds, 178-80; with fruit 
an adequate diet, 219; in natural 
food diet, 233; produces good 
results, 266-8; cooked without 
salt, 316. 



4io 



INDEX. 



Food: When to abstain from, 42; | 
in convalescence, 43, 58; fruit 
and meat only, 44; office of car- 
bonaceous, 45 ; for children, 52-4, 
318; few kinds best, 61, 63, 67; 
too little damaging, 62; for in- 
valids, 63-4; plain the best, 68; 
for different occupations, 70-71; 
in Salisbury cure, 126-9; how 
much to eat, 43-4, 60, 69, 134, 143, 
217-19, 294, 297; English dining 
customs, 210-14; man's natural, 
224-5, 22 6-9, 3345 constituents of 
man's, 224; of different peoples 
and animals, 267-71, 316-17, 331-2, 
338-47, 360-3; fruit excellent, 303, 
348; pre-digested, 318; of birds, 
361-3; the whole question of re- 
viewed, 387-95. 

Force, Vital: Undermined, 48; 
should be conserved, 88, 15 1-8; 
drain upon, 100, 241-2, 337, 366, 
381-2; foundation of a mystery, 
190; deterioration of, 380. 

Fruit: In convalescence, 44; why 
superior to bread, 45, 66; good for 
children, 54, 323; abounds in heat- 
giving elements, 59, 139; prepared 
by nature, 60; easily digested, 66; 
overcomes constipation, 66, 148, 
321-3; contains needed water, 72, 
319-21; with Salisbury diet, 131-33; 
for decorative purposes, 219; with 
flesh, 219; compared with starch 
foods, 226, 266-7, 320, 348; man's 
natural food, 227-9, 267-8, 288-9, 
327, 336-7, 348; the basis of proper 
diet, 233, 288-9; effect of on gesta- 
tion, 260; a food of the ancients, 
267-8, 287, 327, 336; high praise 
for, 303, 321, 323; eaten by apes, 
331-2; interesting facts regarding, 
338-46; cultivation and preserva- 
tion of, 326, 348. 

G 

Garfield: Malpractice in case of, 12. 



GLUCOSE: Readily assimilable, 45, 
59; produced by saliva, 236; in 
figs, 242. 

Goodfellow, Professor: On whole- 
meal bread, 149-50; experiments 
by, 137-40. 

Grapes: A natural food, 135; a diet 
of, 232; a fine food, 303, 319, 321; 
cultivation and preservation of, 
325-6, 339-40. 

Gubler, Prof.: Quotation from 
writings of, 304-10. 



H 



Health: All tendencies toward, 4; 
what it is, 7; sleep necessary to 
86; excesses ruin, 15 1-8, 216, 384; 
man's birthright, 172, 177; the 
first object in life, 182, 301; of 
man vs. animals, 221; natural- 
food diet conducive to, 243; ef- 
fect of diet on, 267-77. 

Heat: of great benefit, 25-6, 45. 

Holbrook, Dr.: Quotations from 
writings of, 314-17* 3 J 9> 3 2I « 



Inman, THOMAS, M. D.: On medical 
treatment, 49-50. 

Indians: Breathe naturally, 92; ill- 
ness rare among, 95; children of, 
96; food of, 290. 

Juices, Digestive: Absent in fever, 
22. 

Jaeger, Dr.: Great improvements 
by, 17. 

K 

Kneipp, Father . Water cure and 
methods of treatment, 1 10-13; 
prefers hot baths to cold, III. 



INDEX. 



411 



Lemons: With hot water, 127; in j 
gestation, 260. 

Life: law of, 4; same law obtains j 
always, 7 ; natural length of man's, j 
155, 220, 367, 378; shortened by j 
excesses, 155-6, 366; earthly ac- 
cumulations shorten, 251-254, 267; 
general results of diet on longevity 
in men and animals, 267-77; De 
Lacy Evans on prolongation of, 
279-303; longer in rich than in 
poor, 272, 306; being slowly 
shortened, 369 ; Buffon and 
Flourens on length of, 367; good 
qualities develop late in, 373-6; 
possibilities of full natural term 
of, 404. 

M 

Macdonald, W. A.; Concerning 
benefit of trees, 356. 

Medicine: None required, 4, 6; not 
a science, 35; opinion of Inman 
on, 49-50; differently adminis- 
tered, 190-1; opinions of promi- 
nent doctors on, 201-9. 

Milk: In convalescence, 44; very 
nutritious, 44; human superior to 
cow's, 52-3, 292; how to sterilize, 
54; with fruit, 54, 63-4, 142; con- 
stituents of, 52-3; an excellent 
food, 63-4, 140, 171, 176, 232, 
291-2; with brown bread, 171. 

N 

Nature: Action of in repairing 
damage, 4-5; curative action of, 
7, 14; the only healing power, 16; 
result of transgressing laws of, 57; 
indications of, a guide to health, 
89-90; wonderful machinery of, 
248-9; foods produced by, 288. 

Nervous System: Controls diges- 



tion, 6; depressed by stimulants, 
46, 38I-2; indulgence of passions 
ruins, 157; digestion of starch 
food strains, 241-2, 337, 366; dis- 
eases of, 365. 

Nutrition: Life based on, 3-4; in 
animal foods and fruits, 59; value 
of, 62; inadequate dangerous, 62; 
food for adequate, 133-4; flesh 
necessary to, 181-2; in fruits and 
nuts, 224, 319-20; of first import- 
ance, 246, 382; process of, 252. 

Nuts: A natural food, 135, 224, 288, 
336; resemble other foods, 137; 
rich in oil and nitrogen, 140, 226; 
cooked with fruits, 141-2; com. 
pared with starch foods, 226, 348; 
digestion of, 226-7; Brazil nut, 
347- 



Obesity: A diseased condition, 62; 
diet for, 132-3, 163-5, 231-2; ills 
connected with, 160-2, 167, 231; a 
deformity, 168-9. 

Opium: administered by physicians, 
10, 191; compared with tea, coffee, 
and tobacco, 73-8; depression fol- 
lows, 154; damaging effects of, 
191. 

Orange: Juice of highly curative, 
303; a queen among fruit, 348. 

Overeating: Results of, 10, 59, 133 
-4, 215-19; how to avoid, 70; strain 
on system, 90, 157; at fashionable 
English dinners, 211-14. 



Perspiration: Very necessary, 31; 
how to induce, 32-3; a hygienic 
rule, 33; in bathing, 102, 116; in 
exercise, 122. 

Protector: For throat and lungs, 
98. 



412 



INDEX. 



Pulse: In health, 36; in illness, 36; 
highest in children, 36; how to 
count, 37. 

R 

Rowbotham: Quotations from writ- 
ings of, 250-77. 



Salisbury, Dr.: Method of cure, 67, 
126-31, 229. 

Saliva: Effect of on starch foods, 
226, 236-43. 

Salt: in Salisbury diet, 129; dam- 
aging effects of, 252; Dr. Holbrook 
condemns, 314-17; starch foods re- 
quire, 357. 

Science: Contributions to from nat- 
ural food discoveries, 396-402. 

Skin: Impurities of and how to re- 
move, 42, 103, 115, 116; an avenue 
of excretion, 99; in health and 
illness, 133; effect of diet on, 
264-5. 

Sleep: In convalescence, 41; how 
much necessary, 48, 86, 89; how 
to induce, 48; health dependent 
on, $6, 128. best with window 
open, 86-9; restores vital force, 
89; conditions for healthful, 90; 
too little damaging, 153, 381-2. 

Spencer, Herbert; Remarks on 
diet question, 322-4. 

Starch Foods: Especially bad for 
children, 55; bad for convales- 
cents, 58; induce overeating, 59; 
must be seasoned, 60, 61, 357-8; 
difficult of digestion, 64, 138, 226-7, 
239-41, 319-20, 385; waste vitality, 
157, 388-9; a cause of obesity, 163, 
388; action of saliva on, 236-243; 
tend to constipation, 245-6; effect 
of in different cases, 256-62; Row- 
botham on, 266; tend to shorten, 



life, 267-73, 291-8, 310, 312-13, 334, 
337> 3 66 ; call for salt, 314-17; many 
drawbacks to, 357-59; not natural 
for animals, 270-1, 333, 361; tend 
to intemperance, 284-6. 

Stimulants: Poisonous effect of, 
4 6 ~7> 73~9> 381; ruin nervous sys- 
tem, 154; Dr. Keeley's cure, 196; 
indulgence in a mistake, 216-17, 
384; lack of health causes desire 
for, 381. 

Surgery: A science, 35; cases when 
useful, 190. 



Tea: Drinking of, in England, 46: 
contains poison, 73; effects of, 75- 
6, 154, 212; should not be used, 143, 
384, an unnatural stimulant, 173, 
381. 

Temperature: Of blood, normal 
and in illness, 37-8; to ascertain, 
37-8; of head and feet, 38-9. 

Tissue: Growth, development, re- 
pair and maintenance of, 3; 
coated with earthy matter, 308-9. 

Tobacco: A poison, 46, 74-5, 385; 
induces intemperance, 68; effects 
of, 77-8, 154. 

Treatment, Hygienic: In acute at- 
tacks, 11; advantages of, II, 19; 
rules for, 23-34; in convalescence, 
41-8; in relapse, 42; highly en- 
dorsed, 49; in diphtheria and 
croup, 52; Father Kneipp's, 110- 
13; Dr. Salisbury's method, 126- 
31; for reducing obesity, 155-6; 
sometimes aided by drugs, 
187-8 ;Priessnitz's water cure, 234. 

Treatment, Medical: Methods of 
compared, 17; beneficial changes 
in, 17, 18, 22, 23. 

Trees: Effect on temperature, fer- 
tility, storms, rainfall, 250-6. 



INDEX. 



413 



Ventilation: Highly necessary, 43, 
47; of bedroom, 81, 85; when 
traveling, 82: bad induces disease, 
83-5. 

Vegetarians: Should eat fish, 141; 
make gains in health, 171; en- 
thusiastic views of, 172; inconsis- 
tency of, 179; fanaticism regard- 
ing drugs, 183-4; broad-minded, 
231; De Lacy Evans on, 303; Dr. 
Winkler on diet of, 312-13; diet 
of favors temperance, 385. 

Vegetables: In treatment for obes- 
ity, 132-3, 163, 166; in fashionable 
English dinners, 211-13; not a 
natural food, 227; experiments 
with, 256; as a food, 264, 288, 303; 
306; mineral substances in, 307- 



10; bring on disease, 312-13; fruit 
and nuts superior to, 348. 

W 
Washington: Wrongly treated, 12. 
Water: Benefits of drinking hot, 

II, 24, 26, 46, 72, 127-8, 143, 218; 

cold allays inflammation, 24, Sy; 

boiled and distilled, 72-3, 254, 299; 

cold a tonic, 101, 104; Father 

Kneipp's application of, 1 10-13; 

cold for insomnia and cold feet, 

113; for home Turkish bath, 1 15— 

16; in Salisbury diet, 127-28, 230; 

drinking and obesity, 164; from 

springs, 253-5; rain-water best, 

299; in fruit, 319-21. 
Window: Keep it open, 34, 47, 81-5; 

sleep best when open, 86; open 

while bathing, 108, 117. 



NATURAL FOOD. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL, devoted to Health and 
the Higher Life. 

Drs. EMMET and HELEN DENSMORE, Proprietors. 

Published by L. N. Fowler, Ludgate Circus, London. 



This magazine is the organ of the Natural Food So- 
ciety. The following is taken from its statement of 
principles : 

The Natural Food Society is founded in the belief 
that the food of primeval man consisted of fruit and 
nuts of sub-tropical climes, spontaneously produced; 
that on these foods man was (and may again become) at 
least as free from disease as the animals are in a state of 
nature. Physiologists unite in teaching that these foods 
are adapted to digestion in the main stomach, where, it 
is contended by this Society, the great bulk of our food 
should be digested ; whereas cereals, pulses, bread and 
in fact all starch foods are chiefly digested in the in- 
testines, and hence, it is maintained, are unnatural and 
disease-inducing foods, and the chief cause of the nervous 
prostration and broken-down health that abound on all 
sides. 

Since nuts and fruits — especially the former — are 
not always obtainable in right varieties and conditions 
— and since most people have weakened powers of diges- 
tion and assimilation, and are thus unable properly to 
digest nuts, and are also obliged to perform more work 
than is natural or healthful — it is recommended that 
milk, curd or milk cheese and eggs be liberally used in- 
stead, and as supplemental to the fruit diet. For all 
those not vegetarians, and also for all those with whom 



milk and eggs do not agree, the usual diet of fish or 
flesh is recommended instead. These animal products 
and flesh foods are " natural " only in the sense that they 
are suitable for digestion in the first stomach, and are 
free from the objections made against bread and other 
cereal and starch foods ; and are valuable and neces- 
sary as long — and only as long — as men and women under 
the exigencies and strain of modern life, are obliged to 
perform more work than is natural or healthful. 

We urge that all fruits in their season — including 
figs, dates, bananas, prunes, raisins, and apples, etc., 
fresh and dried, each of many varieties — be substituted 
for bread and other grain foods and starch vegetables ; 
and experience convinces us that this course will be 
found by a brief experiment highly beneficial, alike to 
the meat eater and to the vegetarian. 

All persons about to experiment with the non-starch 
food system are urged at first not to use nuts ; but to 
use instead whatever animal food they have been ac- 
customed to. The central feature of this system consists 
in abstention from bread, cereals, and starchy vegetables, 
and the liberal use of food-fruits. 

NATURAL FOOD LITERATURE FOR DISTRIBUTION. 

Fruit as Food. — Preparation of Food — Humane 
Dietetics. Price Y^d., or is. ^d. per ioo. 

Also ic., or 30 cts. per 100. 

The Food of Paradise. — Morality of Meat-eating 
— Ethics of Diet — Practical Directions. 

Price Yzd., or is. 3d. per 100. 
Also ic, or 30 cts, per 100. 

Sample copies of above, with other leaflets, post free, id. , 
from Editor Natural Food, j8 Elm Park Road, London, 
S. W. 

These leaflets are the latest expression and application of the non- 
starch system ; and friends of the movement are earnestly invited to 
assist in their widespread distribution. With this in view cost price only 
is charged. 



l&ooke on flDe&ical anfc Ikinbreb Subjects, 



Household Dictionary of Medicine : 

Preventive and Curative. 

By F. R. Walters, M.D., University Scholar and Gold Medallist in 
Surgery. 
With numerous Illustrations. Medium 8vo, cloth, "js. 6d. 

"Should be added to all well-selected collections of books which simplify the 
operations and soften the cares of household management." — Scots Observer. 
"Well deserving of success." — Saturday Review. 

A Text- Book on Surgery: 

General, Operative and Mechanical. 

By John A. Wyeth, M.D., of New York. 

Fully illustrated with woodcuts and coloured diagrams. 
778 pp., royal 8vo, cloth, 42s. 

Jenner and Vaccination : 

A Chapter of Popular Medical History. 
By Charles Creighton, M.D., Author of the Article "Vaccination," 
in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." 

Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. 

"An important addition to the literature bearing on the subject." — Manchester 
Examiner. 

Doctors and Doctors : 

Some Curious Chapters in Medical History and Quackery. 

By Graham Everitt. 

With a coloured Frontispiece after Gillray. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. 

" It abounds in amusing anecdote and quaint incident." — Graphic. 
"A most entertaining and instructive work." — Academy. 

The Modern Rack: 

Papers on Vivisection. 

By Frances Power Cobbe. 

280 pp., Crown 8vo, cloth, is. 6d., with Illustrations. 

"Anti-vivisectionists will find in her book a perfect armoury of facts and 
arguments." — Scottish Leader. 



The Demon of Dyspepsia: 

Or, Digestion, Perfect and Imperfect. 
By Adolphus E. Bridger, M.D. 
A popular scientific treatise dealing with the use and abuse of the 
digestive organs. 
Crown 8vo, cloth, 4s. 6d. 
" A book of sterling value and use." — Knowledge. 
"Treated in a systematic and thoroughly scientific character." — Morning Post. 

Habit and Health : 

A Book of Golden Rules for Middle Age. 

By Guy Beddoes. 

Crown 8vo, cloth, 3.5- . 6d. 

" In these days, amid the worry and rush of an active business life, this book 
is calculated to exercise a great influence for good upon business men." — City 
Press. 

A Manual of Home Nursing : 

By L. E. Dobree, with a Preface by Mary Scharlieb, M.D. 

Fcap. 8vo, limp cloth, is. 6d. 
" It would be difficult to overpraise it." — Scotsman. 
" Of great practical value." — Graphic. 

The Philosophy of Sight : 

Is Bad Sight on the Increase ? 

By A. Fournet. 

Crown 8vo, paper wrapper, is. 

"This is the most interesting brochure on sight we have ever read. It is 
brimful of earnestness and enthusiasm, and is the work of an eminently prac- 
tical master of optics. . . . We honestly recommend every one who sets store 
by his eyesight (and who does not?) to read this clever and lucid book." — St. 
Stephen's Review. 

Health Troubles of City Life: 

By George Herschell, M.D. 

Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, is. 

"We heartily commend this little work to the public, for its warnings and 
advice alike."— Literary World. 

Mad Doctors : 

By One of Them. 

Demy 8vo, paper wrapper, is. 

"The Author writes clearly and forcibly. The book deserves attention." — 
Publishers* Circular. 



WORKS BY DR. NEWSHOLME. 



The Elements of Vital Statistics : 

By Arthur Newsholme, M.D., Lond., Author of Manuals of "Hy- 
giene " and of " School Hygiene." 
Second Ed. With many Tables, Diagrams, etc. Cr. 8vo, cloth, Js. 6d. 
" An elaborate and able work." — Glasgow Herald. 

"The book is distinguished by masterly research, and on every page reveals 
the hand of a specialist." — Publishers' Circular. 

Domestic Economy : 

Comprising the Laws of Health in their Application to Home Life 

and Work. 
By Arthur Newsholme, M.D., and Margaret Eleanor Scott. 
With 60 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3-r. 6d. 

Lessons on Health: 

Containing the Elements of Physiology, and their Application to 

Hygiene. 

By Arthur Newsholme, M.D. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. 

"An excellent little book, and well adapted for the requirements of the Ele- 
mentary Stage of the Science Department in Hygiene ; well up to date." — Sani- 
tary Record. 

"The illustrations are remarkably good ; experiments on the various subjects 
treated are given and explained; questions set at the Elementary Science Ex- 
aminations are stated and the correct answers given. Dr. Newsholme possesses 
the somewhat rare faculty of presenting condensed and even abstruse matter in 
a readable and fascinating style." — Sanitary Record. 

School Hygiene: 

The Laws of Health in Relation to School Life. 

By Arthur Newsholme, M.D., etc. 

With 29 Figures. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6u, 

"Wholly meritorious and altogether free from any blemishes that we can 
find. There is nothing to be said of it but that it is excellent." — Atlienczuiti. 

" Dr. Newsholme has studied his subject thoroughly, and his conclusions are 
all the more valuable because they have been to a large extent suggested by 
his experience as a medical officer of health, and as a medicinal referee for 
various schools and training colleges." — Nature. 



IRatural Ibistor? anb Scientific Books 

PUBLISHED BY 

SWAN SONNUNSCHEIN &> CO. 



Elementary Text-Book of Zoology : 

By Prof. W. Glaus (University, Vienna), edited by Adam Sedgwick, 

M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

Examiner in Zoology to the University of London; 

assisted by Y. G. Heathcote, M.A. 

With 706 new woodcuts. 2 vols. Demy 8vo, 37J., or, separately: 

I. General Introduction, and Protozoa to Insecta, 21s. 

II. Mollusca to Man, 16s. 

Third Edition, revised and enlarged. 

"It is thoroughly trustworthy and serviceable, and is very well got up. The 
706 beautifully clear and most judiciously selected woodcuts enhance the value 
of the book incalculably, and there can be little doubt that it will be universally 
adopted as an elementary text-book." — Athenaum. 

"Teachers and students alike have been anxiously waiting for its appearance. 
. . . We would lay especial weight on the illustrations of this work for two 
reasons ; firstly, because correct figures are of enormous assistance to the stu- 
dent, . . . and secondly ... it contains as rich a supply of well-drawn, 
well-engraved, and well -selected figures as ever man could desire. Admirably 
printed. . . . The whole enterprise reflects the greatest credit." — Zoologist. 

"It is not often a work so entirely fulfills its object. . . . It is alike credit- 
able to author, translators, and publishers, who seem to have vied with each 
other in rendering it not only valuable but attractive." — Knowledge. 

"The exhaustively minute and well-arranged treatment, aided by diagrams 
and illustrations of wonderful clearness, at once command for this book its 
proper place as our leading text-book of zoology."— Glasgow Herald. 

Handbook of Entomology: 

By W. F. Kirby, of the British Museum. 

Illustrated with several hundred figures. 

Large square 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 15J. 

" It is, in fact, a succinct encyclopaedia of the subject. Plain and perspicuous 
in language, and profusely illustrated, the insect must be a rare one indeed 
whose genus — and perhaps even whose species — the reader fails to determine 
without difficulty. . . . The woodcuts are so admirable as almost to cheat 
the eye, familiar with the objects presented, into the belief that it is gazing 
upon the colours which it knows so well. . . . Advanced entomologists will 
obtain Mr. Kirby's fine volume as a handy book of reference ; the student will 
buy it as an excellent introduction to the science and as an absolutely trust- 
worthy text-book." — Knowledge. 

Tourists' Guide to the Flora of the Alps : 

Edited from the work of Prof. K. W. v. Dalla Torre, and issued 
under the auspices of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in Vienna. 

By A. W. Bennett, M.A., B.Sc. 

Elegantly printed on very thin but opaque paper, 392 pp., bound as 

a small morocco pocket-book, 5^. 



Our Summer Migrants: 

An Account of the Migratory Birds which Pass the Summer m the 
British Islands. 

By J. E. Harting, F.L.S., F.Z.S., 

Author of "A Handbook of British Birds," a new edition of White's 
"Selborne," etc., etc. 

Second Edition. Illustrated with 30 Illustrations on Wood, from 
Designs by Thomas Bewick. 8vo, cloth elegant, *js. 6d. 



Dictionary of British Birds : 

By Colonel Montague. 

New Edition. Edited by E. Newman, F.L.S. 

Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, Js. 6d. 

An Atlas of Fossil Conchology : 

Being a new edition, containing the whole of the original steel plates 
(tinted) from Brown's "Fossil Conchology," with descriptive 
letterpress. 

Royal 4to, cloth, published at ^3 3J.; reduced to i8j. net. 

Elementary Text-Book of Botany : 

By Prof. W. Prantl and S. H. Vines, D.Sc, M.A., Fellow and 
Lecturer of Christ's College, Cambridge. 

Twelfth Thousand. Illustrated by 275 woodcuts. Demy 8vo, 
cloth, gs. 

[This book has been specially written as an Introduction to Sachs' 
"Text-Book of Botany," at the request of Professor Sachs himself.] 

"It is with a safe conscience that we recommend it as the best book in the 
English! anguage." — Nature. 

Elementary Text-Book of Practical Botany: 

A Manual for Students. Uniform with the above. 

Edited from the work of Prof. W. Strasburger, by Prof. W. Hill- 
house, M.A., of the Mason College, Birmingham. 

Illustrated by a large number of new woodcuts. 8vo, gs. 

Second Edition, enlarged and revised, with additional woodcuts. 

" The chief features of the author's work are the numerous well-selected 
types dealt with, and the thoroughness with which thev are treated. ... As 
might be expected, there is a masterly chapter on the study of the cell and 
nucleus and their division. . . . The work is illustrated with numerous ex- 
cellent woodcuts. ... As an exposition of the new methods of botanical 
research, it is the best handbook we have yet seen, and should be at hand in 
every laboratory." — Atheiuzum. 



The Geographical Distribution of Disease in England and 
Wales : 

By Alfred Haviland, M.D. 
With several Coloured Maps. 

Text-Book of Embryology : Man and Mammals : 

By Dr. Oscar Hertwig, Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the 
University of Berlin. 

Translated and Edited from the Third German Edition (with the 
assistance of the Author) by Dr. E. L. Mark, Professor of Anatomy 
in Harvard University. (Printed in England.) With 389 Illustra- 
tions and 2 Coloured Plates. 

Text-Book of Embryology : Invertebrates : 

By Drs. Korschelt and Heider, of the University of Berlin. 
Translated and Edited by Dr. E. L. Marx, Professor of Anatomy 
in Harvard University. With several hundred Illustrations. 

Text-Book of Animal Palaeontology : 

By Dr. Thomas Roberts, of the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge. 
Designed as a Supplement to Claus and Sedgwick's "Text-Book of 
Zoology. ' ' Illustrated. 

Text-Book of Geology: 

Adapted from the work of Dr. Emanuel Kayser, Professor in the 
University of Marburg. 

By Philip Lake, of St. John's College, Cambridge. With Illustra- 
tions. 

The Colours of Animals: 

By Professor F. E. Beddard, of the Zoological Society's Gardens and 
Guy's Hospital, London. 

With Coloured and other Plates and Woodcuts. 



SECOND EDITION, THOROUGHLY REVISED AND EXTENDED TO ABOUT 

40,000 BOOKS. 

WOQpp. Thick 4*0, cloth extra, 3 1 s. 6d. nett. 
With very Copious Topical and Author's Indexes. 

THE BEST BOOKS 

A Reader's Guide to the Choice of the Best Available Books in 
all Departments of Literature down to 1 890, with the Dates 
of the First and Last Editions, and the Price, Size, and Pub- 
lisher's Name of each Book. Accompanied by numerous 
Characterizations, Bibliographical Notes, etc 

By WILLIAM SWAN SONNENSCHEIN. 

The whole work is divided into classes, each of which is sub-divided 
into sections, and again into paragraphs and sub-paragraphs, systemat- 
ically and lucidly arranged. 
Class A.— Theology [{a) Natural (6) Ethnic (c) Christian] 134 sects. 

Class B. — Mythology and Folklore 39 " 

Class C. — Philosophy [(a) In Schools {b) According to 

Writers] 73 " 

Class D. — Society [(a) Law (3) Political Economy (c) Social 

Economy (d) Commerce (e) Education] . .172 " 
Class E. — Geography, Travel, and Ethnography . 69 " 
Class F. — History and Historical Biography . . 76 " 
Class G. — Historical Collaterals [Antiquities, Archae- 
ology, etc.] 31 " 

Class H. — Science 106 " 

Medicine 62 " 

Class I. — Arts and Trades 172 " 

Class K. — Literature and Philology 286 " 

" An arduous and useful labour successfully accomplished ; a work the like 
of which has not, in this country, been attempted. His system of classifica- 
tion and arrangement is excellent. Let us take it that the student wishes to 
ascertain the best books upon the struggles with Charles I. and his Commons. 
He turns to the division of 'HISTORY' (f) ; a sub-division is 'History of 
Europe' (iv). Under f iv. he finds chapter 16, ' History of England : 1603-1655.' 
Here are first supplied the 'Sources,' and then follow at length the various 
works dealing with the epoch and the biography thereof. This is a mere out- 
line of the main scheme. How conscientiously it is carried out, and what a 
mass of concurrent information is provided, can only be ascertained by a refer- 
ence to the volume, which is a marvel of patient industry, and, so far as we 
have tested it, of exactness." — Notes and Queries. 

"The most accurate, scientific, and useful contribution that has ever been 
made to English bibliography ; . . . exactly what was wanted — a full, thor- 
ough, and accurate list of the best works on every subject . . . It is a per- 
manent addition to English literature." — British Weekly. 

"It would be difficult to exaggerate the usefulness of this work, or to pass 
too lightly the industry of the compiler. It belongs to that class of works wnich 
every reader finds 01 service, but uses, as Johnson said, without gratitude ! 
. . . The more the guide is examined, the more struck will the reader be at 
its thoroughness." — Spectator. 

"An excellent work, executed in a competent manner ; . . . the more we 
have looked at it, the better we have likeait." — Athenceum. 

" A very valuable addition to our works of reference." — Literary World. 

" Deserves nothing but unqualified praise." — Bookseller. 

" A welcome contribution to biography." — Westminster Review. 

" A book which every Librarian will be glad to have upon his table. ... A 
very excellent attempt." — Library Chronicle of Library Assoc, of the U. K. 

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON. 



oct -o m 



